164 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»'i S. VII. Feb. 26. '59. 



BISHOP BEDELL. 



In the comprehensive account which Dr. Cotton 

 has given of Bedell (Fasti EcclesioB Hibernicce, iii. 

 157 — 167.), he expresses " an anxious wish that 

 justice should be done to the memory of a distin- 

 guished and persecuted man," and states that he 

 himself had many years ago "designed to take 

 the matter in hand, and had made some collec- 

 tions for the purpose." That so learned and ac- 

 curate a scholar as Dr. Cotton should have been 

 prevented from raising a worthy monument to 

 the fame of him whom Coleridge confessed to be 

 " the most spotless man of whom he had read in 

 all ecclesiastical history," must be a matter of re- 

 gret to all historical students. In default of any 

 more elaborate memoir of the bishop, I have 

 sometimes thought of printing the two lives pre- 

 served in the Tanner MS., together with such 

 letters as have been preserved. As a first step 

 towards such a. collection, I send an extract from 

 my common-place book, which may perhaps elicit 

 additional information from some of your corre- 

 spondents. 



In the GentlemarCs Magazine for November, 

 1850, 1 printed two original letters from Bedell 

 to Lady Wray. (Compare the " Notices to Cor- 

 respondents " in the December number of the 

 magazine.) 



A letter from Bedell to Laud (April 1, 1630) is 

 in Heylin's Cypi'ianus Angl., p. ] 96. ; one to Straf- 

 ford (Nov. 5, 1633), ibid., p. 254. seq. See other 

 particulars, ibid., pp. 204. 253. See also the letter 

 to Laud (Kilmore, April 1, 1630), in Prynne's 

 Breviat, pp. 101, 102. ; that to Strafford (Nov. 5, 

 1633), ibid., pp. Ill, 112. He signs a petition, 

 ibid., pp. 110, 111. The two letters occur again 

 in Prynne's Canterburie's Doome, pp. 436, 437. 

 See also ibid., p. 230. 



Respecting his Cambridge lecture, see Samuel 

 Clarke's Lives of Eminent Divines (1677), p. 250. 



A letter in Sir Henry Ellis's Letters of Eminent 

 Literary Men, p. 135. 



An ode in Whi taker's Preelections (4to., Cambr. 

 1599, p. 77. seq.), and thence in Churton's Life of 

 Nowell, p. 427. seq. 



Letters from and to Bedell, amongst Ussher's 

 and Laud's correspondence. See also Elrington's 

 Life of Ussher, pp. 87, 88. 97. seq., 115. seq. 



Copies of Burnet's Life of Bedell with MS. 

 notes ; by Rawlinson, in the Bodleian ; by Thomas 

 Baker, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 5832. fol. 58. ; by 

 Lewis and Birch, also in the British Museum ; by 

 Le Neve (Heber's Sale Catalogue, pt. 10. art. 379. 

 Where is this ?) 



A letter to Alabaster (Lambeth MS. 772.). 

 " Defence of the Answer to Mr. Alablaster's Four 

 Demands," MS. in the Heber collection (Cata- 

 logue, pt. 11. art. 71. Where is this?) 



la 1620 Bedell acted as executor to Robert 



Lewis (Appendix B. to 5th Report of Committee, 

 on Education, p. 482.). J. E. B. Mayor. 



St. John's College, Cambridge. 



THE WELLESLEYS : THE DESCENT OP THE MANOR 

 FROM WHICH THET DERIVE THEIR NAME. 



Although the origin of the family name, as well 

 as the pedigree of the Wellesleys, have been dis- 

 cussed by several correspondents in the pages of 

 " N. & Q.," yet it seems to me that the subject is 

 by no means exhausted. In attempting to trace 

 the descent of the manor of Wellesleigh, I may 

 perhaps add a little to the information already 

 published, and thus revive (as I wish to do) the 

 discussion, which has now been dropped for a con- 

 siderable time. 



This family, from its connexion with divers 

 valuable manors in the county of Somerset, seems 

 always to have been one of importance and wealth. 

 Most writers on the subject admit that the name 

 is derived from the ancient hamlet of Wells-Leigh, 

 in the ancient parish of St. Cuthbert, in Wells, 

 two miles from the city of that name. About 

 this I think there can be no reasonable doubt. 



I have not been able to satisfy myself as to the 

 precise period when the family first became settled 

 here, or what circumstance or event brought them 

 into this part of the kingdom. In my researches 

 among the ancient and valuable records in the 

 custody of the Corporation of Wells, I found nu- 

 merous notices of the name, mostly as witnesses 

 in charters and grants of land in the locality. 

 The first in point of date is the original charter 

 of Bishop Reginald Fitz-Jocelyne to the town of 

 Wells. In this document the name of Walerand 

 de Wellesleigh* occurs as one of the witnesses; 

 and although the charter bears no date, yet it 

 must have been granted between a.d. 1174, when 

 the bishop succeeded to the see, and a.d. 1191, 

 when he died. The name of Edmund de Welles- 

 legh occurs as a witness in the following docu- 

 ments, which came under my notice on a casual 

 inspection only of the numerous charters and 

 grants among the City Records, but I have no 

 doubt there are many more such : — 

 2 Edward II. (a.d. 1308). — Grant by John de Merke of 



* " 7 Henry VI. John Stourton held half a knight's fee 

 in Welleslegh and Est Wall, which Walerand de IVelles- 

 legh formerly held " (Coll. Hist. Som., vol. iii. p. 408.). 

 In "N. & Q." (I't S. vi. 585.), Mr. G. R. Adams, writing 

 on the subject of the VVellesley pedigree, asks whether the 

 Walerand de Welleslegh, mentioned by Collinson, can bo 

 the same as the Waleran de Wellesley noticed in Lj'nch's 

 Feudal Dignities of Ireland, as being in Ireland in 1230. 

 It seems to me b}' no means improbable that he was so. 

 It is said that Avenant de Welleslegh originally had a 

 grant from Henry II. of the Bailiwick of North Ferret by 

 the service of bearing the king's standard, and this high 

 office seems to have continued in the family for many 

 generations. 



