436 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°i S. VII. May 28. 'o9. 



the ally of Alaric the Goth, at the sacking of that 

 city. The monastery of lona was three times 

 burnt (twice by the Danes and once accidentally), 

 but many of the books and records have been 

 traced after that time. Some were seen at Dron- 

 thelm during the last century ; some Edward I. 

 took to England; some the fugitive monks of 

 lona, at the Reformation, took to Rome ; some 

 were seen in the Scotch college at Douai ; some 

 at Ratisbon ; some were said to have been pur- 

 loined by the Campbells, and deposited at Inve- 

 rary. One MS. was known to be preserved in the 

 family of Beaton at Pennicross in Mull. One 

 was in the possession of Mr. Lambie, minister of 

 Kilmartine, in the last century. Some were seen 

 in Barray, and one in Benbecula. It is said there 

 is one preserved in the library of Trinity College, 

 Dublin. Where are all these relics now? and is 

 there any other tradition of the fate of other parts 

 of that once famous library ? Could the remains 

 be collected, examined, and deposited together in 

 one place — in Scotland, so as to be preserved 

 from farther decay and loss ? L. M. N. R. 



Rev. W. Fowler. — In a modern work QAnnals 

 ofHawicJt, James Dalgleisb, Hawick, 1850) some 

 account is given (p. 322.) of the Rev. William 

 Fowler, a Scotch divine, who went to England 

 with Queen Anne, whose secretary he was at the 

 accession of her husband James I. to the English 

 crown. Fowler, whose name has now become 

 rather obscure, is stated, besides other writings, 

 to have composed verses, translated the Triumph 

 of Petrarch, &c., the MS. of all which are in the 

 College of Edinburgh. Fowler was thus a con- 

 temporary, and probably acquaintance, of Shak- 

 speare. Have any of your readers examined these 

 MSS. ? and do they contain any allusions to our 

 immortal bard ? J. 



Burgftfield- Regis, Manor of, Co. Berks. — Par- 

 ticulars of the descent of the above down to 19 

 Henry VI., when it was sold to John Wenlok and 

 Elizabeth his wife, will much oblige.. 



R. W. Dixon. 



Seaton Carew, co. Durham. 



Captain Sir Thomas Byard. — I should feel 

 much obliged if any of your readers could ii\,- 

 form me of any particulars of the birth-place, or 

 family, or early life of the late Capt. Sir Thomas 

 Byard, a brave and experienced officer, who dis- 

 tinguished himself in command of the Bedford, 

 74, in the memorable battle of Camperdown, 

 11th October, 1797, and also commanded the 

 Foudroyant, 80, at the capture of the Hoche, 

 74, &c., off the Coast of Ireland, October, 1798, 

 under Sir J. Borlase Warren. 



It is believed that the name was originally 

 " Bayard," and the family were French Protest- 

 ants, and on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 



left France and settled in Yorkshire. The arms 

 assigned to the name are " Erm. three lions ram- 

 2>ant." Could any of your numerous readers in- 

 form me to whom, and when, the grant was 

 made ? Inquirer, 



Basil, Attorney -General for Ireland, 1632. — I 

 should like to know of what family the above was, 



R.W. Dixon. 

 Seaton Carew, co. Durham. 



The Rev. Gerald Valerian Wellesley. — Can 

 any of your readers give me any information re- 

 garding the burial-place of the Hon, and Rev. 

 Gerald Valerian Wellesley, D.D., brother to the 

 late Duke of Wellington ? He died at his house 

 in the college, Durham, Oct. 1848. If any monu- 

 mental inscription can be found, a copy of the 

 same would be acceptable. F. G, 



iPltiTDr (h\xtvit€ tottlb ^n^bJcrS. 

 Scandal against Queen Elizabeth. — I have not 

 the book now in my possession, nor do I know 

 where to obtain a sight of it ; but I recollect that 

 Cobbett, in his History of the Reformation, states 

 that Queen Elizabeth caused an act of parliament 

 to be passed, the effect of which would have been 

 to legitin^.ate any offspring she might have had 

 that should have been born out of wedlock. Now, 

 although I should not accept Cobbett as an au- 

 thority on so important a point, unnoticed as far 

 as I know by most historians, I should think he 

 would hardly have ventured on such a statement 

 without some foundation. N. J, A. 



[Cobbett (^History of the Protestant Reformation, edit. 

 1829, Letter x.) states, Avith a malevolence only ex- 

 ceeded by his ignorance, that " Elizabeth had, in the 13th 

 year of her reign, assented to an Act that was passed, 

 which secured the crown to her ' natural issue,' by which 

 any bastard that she might have by anybody became 

 heir to the throne ; and it was, by the same Act, made 

 high treason to deny that such issue was heir to it. This 

 Act, which is still in the Statute Book, 13 Eliz., cap. i. 

 sect. 2., is a proof of the most hardened profligacy that 

 ever was witnessed in woman, and it is surprising that 

 such a mark of apparent national abjectness and infamy- 

 should have been suffered to remain in black and white 

 to this day." Again, in the same letter he says, that 

 'when the parliament could not prevail upon her to 

 marry, it passed an Act to make any bastard (' natural 

 issue ') of her's lawful heir to the throne." Cobbett does 

 not appear to have consulted the Act himself, for the 

 passage occurs, not in the second, but in the fifth section, 

 •where we read " That whosoever shall hereafter declare 

 and affirm, that any one particular person is or ought to be 

 the right heir and successor to the Queen's Majesty that 

 now is, except the same be the natural issue of Her Ma- 

 jesty's body, shall for the first offence suffer imprison- 

 ment for one year." Cobbett could scarcely have beeu 

 ignorant that the word natural, which in modern times de- 

 notes illegitimacy, had formerly a different, and to a cer- 

 tain extent a contrary meaning. " The term," says Mr. 

 'Hubbock {Treatise on the Evidence of Succession, p. 252.) 

 " appears to have been used in a sense consistent with 

 legitimacy, namely, that of real or genuine, in contradis- 



