2"* B. VII. Aeeil 30. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



357 



there, on account of the insignificance of the king- 

 dom and its deeds ! This was a singular assertion 

 to be made by them, the year after Harfleur and 

 Agincourt! The opposition was, however, inef- 

 fectual, and England took her place, for the first 

 time, as one of the five great powers. She was 

 "accounted one of the five principall nations," 

 says Trussell. Was any nation then displaced for 

 her? The ordej||of precedence, as settled by 

 Eome, had long stood thus : I. German Empire 

 and Roman Kingdom ; 2. France ; 3. Castile and 

 Spain; 4. Arragon; S.Portugal; 6. England; 7. 

 Sicily ; 8. Scotland ; 9. Hungary ; 10. Navarre ; 

 11. Cyprus; 12. Bohemia; 13. Poland; 14. Scan- 

 dinavia. 



England, at the Council named above, claimed 

 the third place on the roll of national precedency. 

 Portugal would seem to have lost her rank among 

 the "live principall nations" on this occasion; 

 and it is certain that Sicily, which had hitherto 

 been first on the list of minor powers, now claimed 

 to stand above Portugal. 



An attempt was made (in 1564) by the French 

 to disturb this pontifically-sanctioned order of na- 

 tions ; and, in truth, time and public opinion had, 

 at that period, caused it to be disregarded, except 

 on ceremonious occasions. Much importance was, 

 even down to our own days, attached to the order 

 in which the representatives of nations at con- 

 gresses and similar assemblies signed the various 

 documents to which they had to subscribe. The 

 order was supposed to distinguish the degrees of 

 power. At the late Peace Conferences in Paris, 

 the representatives of the various imperial and 

 regal governments saved much discussion and a 

 little pride by adopting an alphabetical order of 

 precedence, and this will be henceforward, I be- 

 lieve, the established form. J. Doban. 



iHtiior ^atti. 



Scottish Capital Punishments in the Sixteenth 

 Century. — The following instances of capital 

 punishments in Scotland in the end of the six- 

 teenth century, may be found of interest, as il- 

 lustrating the manners of the age. They are taken 

 from the Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, by 

 David Moyses, an old servant to King James 

 VI. :~ 



" 1579.— Upon the 12th of August one Turnbull and 

 one Scot were both hanged at the cross of Stirling, for 

 making up ballads tending to the sowing of sedition 

 among the nobility, which was thought a precedent, 

 never one being hanged for the like before : and, in the 

 meantime, at the scattering of the people, there were 

 ten or twelve despiteful letters and infamous libels in 

 prose, found, as if they had been lost among the people, 

 tending to the reproach of the earl of Morton and his 

 predecessors." 



" 1584. — Upon the 2^ day of December, a baxter's 

 [baker's] boy, called Robert Henderson (no doubt by the 



instigation of Satan), desperately put some powder and 

 a candle in his father's heather- stack, standing in a close 

 opposite to the trone of Edinburgh, and burnt the same 

 with his father's house, which lay next adjacent, to the 

 imminent hazard of burning the whole town : For which, 

 being apprehended most marvellously after his escaping 

 out of the town, he was on the next day burnt quick 

 [alive] at the cross of Edinburgh, as an example." 



Is there any other instance of burning alive in 

 Scotland except for heresy and sorcery ? E. S. F. 

 Perth. 



Old Irish Almanacs, — We are informed, in 

 Whitelaw and Walsh's History of the City of 

 Dublin, vol. ii. p. 1162., that "an Irish almanac, 

 so early as the 15th century, is stated to have 

 been in the possession of General Vallancey." 

 This, however, is a statement which must be re- 

 ceived with caution, inasmuch as the first book 

 printed in Ireland was the Book of Common 

 Prayer, in 1551 ; and even in England no books 

 were printed until 1474. For some particulars 

 respecting this class of publications see Wilde's 

 Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life, p. 151. Mr. 

 Wilde is in general correct; but he gives 1779, 

 instead of 1729, as the year in which Watson's 

 Almanac was established. It can now boast of a 

 regular succession for 130 years. Abhba. 



Epigram. — The following appears in the album 

 at the King's Head inn, Llangollen : — 



" Cambrik, te nunquam claros peperisse Poetas 

 Fertur. Non mirum Cambria : causa patet. 

 Nam, licet iunumeros Ap-Jones, Ap-Jenkins, Ap- 

 Evans 

 Jactes, e terra nullos Ap-oUo tua." 



Which may be thus imitated in English : — 



" 'Tis said, Cambria, thou hast tried in vain 

 To form great poets : and the cause is plain. 

 Ap-Jones, Ap-Jenkins, and Ap-Evans sound 

 Among thy sons, but no Ap-ollo's found." 



F. C. H. 



Steam Navigation. — The following cutting from 

 The Standard of Feb. 19, 1859, seems worthy of 

 preservation in your columns, and perhaps I may 

 add of correction too. Had its writer read his 

 "]Sr. & Q." (l'*S. iii.;23. 69.), he would there 

 have learnt that, long before 1786, one Jonathan 

 Hulls had taken out a patent for a boat propelled 

 by steam, an account of which was published in 

 1713. But I apprehend no number of imperfect 

 attempts, attended with partial success, lessen the 

 just fame of the man whose genius supplied all 

 that remained wanting to enable man to apply . 

 the mighty power of steam to navigation Fulton 

 must ever be remembered as one of England's 

 worthies : — 



" Invention of Steam Navigation. — A writer in the 

 American Histoncal Register shows, that so far from Ful- 

 ton being the first who applied the steam-engine to navi- 

 gation, he was in fact the twelfth. Eleven diflferent 

 boats had before that time been propelled by American 



