2'x> S. N« 74., May 30. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



421 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MAYSO.Uhl. 

 NOTES ON PBESCOTt's " PHILIP 11." 



The great boon conferred upon the literary 

 world by Prescott, in his History of the Reign of 

 Philip the Second, is more particularly jjratifying to 

 those interested in the history of the Netherlands, 

 and still more to those who have studied the pro- 

 gress of the Reformation. Under the influence 

 of the latter impressions, the following trifling in- 

 accuracies or exaggerations are gleaned fiom the 

 mass of information with no unfriendly hand. 

 That the author may be induced to blot these 

 blemishes from his pages, is the only hope that 

 prompts this effort to make the work more gene- 

 rally acceptable, through a more faithful adhe- 

 rence to reality. 



On the subject of Brussels Cathedral (vol. i. 

 p. 260.), the following extract from a private 

 letter is appended as a note : — 



"The setting sun was streaming through the rich- 

 colored panes of the magnificent windows that ' rise from 

 the floor' to the ceiling of the Cathedral, 'some hundred 

 feet in height' " 



The Chapel of the Holy and Miraculous Sacra- 

 ment was built in 1537 ; the Chapel of Notre 

 Dame de Deliverance in 1649. The windows in 

 these chapels are the most elevated in the church, 

 and may descend to within eight feet of the floor : 

 to say that windows rise from the pavement, is an 

 attempt to verify an anomaly in ecclesiastical 

 architecture. " Some hundred feet in height." 

 " Some,'' in the minimum, must have reference to 

 two; and we are thus called upon to imagine a 

 vaulting, beneath which the towers at the west 

 end of the church, or those of York Cathedral, or 

 of Westminster Abbey, might stand erect. Vault- 

 ings are rarely elevated one hundred feet ; York 

 does exceed this by a few feet ; Cologne probably 

 by more, but both fall far short of the height 

 proposed. 



" Queen Elizabeth" (vol. i. p. 459.). " And the 

 politic Queen assigned them (the reformers) also 

 the ^seaport' of Norwich as a residence." This 

 geographical error of the sixteenth century is 

 pardonable, but the repetition of it in the nine- 

 teenth is far better avoided. The recent attempt 

 by means of tug-boats to float a few sea-borne 

 vessels to Norwich, is not sufficient to warrant 

 the revival of an evident error. 



"Burning the churches" (vol. ii. p. 80.). This 

 implies the destruction of the sacred edifices, 

 which, if ever perpetrated, could only have been 

 done to a limited extent. The tracery in the 

 windows of the village churches is mostly de- 

 stroyed throughout the country, but this mischief 

 is chiefly perpetrated by modern iconoclasts. In 

 rambling over the vast space on the right bank of 



the Scheldt, the scene of the irruption under 

 Thoulouse, many very ancient churches will be 

 found, all like our own, of mixed 'styles of archi- 

 tecture, and bearing evidence either of violence or 

 decay ; but the great probability is, that no church 

 will be found erected in the subsequent century 

 to these disastrous wars. 



The church in the Port of Lillo is an exception, 

 which has probably been erected as often as the 

 place has been besieged. Eckeren, the nearest 

 village to the encampment, possesses a remarkably 

 fine example of ancient church architecture. 

 Oerden has an early pile, with the exception of 

 the east end. Austruwel itself has a modern nave 

 attached to an ancient tower. 



"Bridge over the Scheldt" (vol. ii. p. 81.). An 

 order of the Prince of Orange to close the Ports 

 of Antwerp continued : 



" Who had moreover caused a bridge across the Scheldt 

 to be broken down, 'to cutoff' all communications be- 

 tween ' the City and the Camp of Thoulouse.' " 



The mighty achievement of joining land to land 

 by engineering was in this locality reserved to 

 some future but not distant period. The village 

 of Austruwel, where the battle was fought, is on 

 the " same bank " of the Scheldt as Antwerp ; but 

 there are small streams tributary to that river, 

 and others supplying the fosses ; over these it is 

 very probable bridges were thrown, particularly 

 the Laerche, on the banks of which was the chief 

 conflict. 



Austruwel, speaking of this village (vol. il. 

 p. 81.), the Scheldt " which washes the base of the 

 ' high land ' occupied by the village." This is a 

 flagrant inaccuracy ; it is well-known to all tra- 

 vellers that the river is far above the level of the 

 land. The sentence is totally inapplicable to the 

 amazing district which a rupture of the dykes 

 might submerge in the brief space of a single 

 niffht. Heney Daveney. 



MAJOR-OENEBAXi BOWI.ANI> I^ANGHABNE. 



This gallant officer, who so skilfully defended 

 Pembroke Castle during its memorable siege by 

 Oliver Cromwell in 1648, was a scion of an an- 

 cient family which for centuries resided in the 

 county of Pembroke. He was the son of John 

 Langharne, Esq., of St. Bride's, by his wife Jenet, 

 daughter of Sir Hugh Owen, Knt., of Orielton, co. 

 of Pembroke. Rowland Langharne was appointed 

 by the Parliament Major-General of the counties 

 of Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan ; and, as 

 I mentioned in a former article, was mainly in- 

 strumental in compelling the king's lieutenant, the 

 Earl of Carbery, to abandon the county of Pem- 

 broke. For this, and other services, the Parlia- 

 ment, on March 4, 1645, settled the estate of 

 Slebech, in Pembrokeshire, upon General Lang- 



