16 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 114. 



opinion, that she was left a young widow at her 

 husband's death in 1487, and agree with Sir 

 Walter Raleigh's statement, that she " was living 

 in 1589," and '■'■many years afterwards ^ Lord 

 Bacon's express words are, " Certainly they report 

 that within these few years the Countess of Desmond 

 lived to an hundred and forty years of age." These 

 words occur in his History of Life and Death, 

 published in 1623, and add to the probability 

 that^ the old lady was either lately dead, or that 

 possibly, in the little intercourse between London 

 and remote parts of the empire at that period, she 

 might be even then alive, without his knowledge. 



I submit these speculations to correction ; and 

 in venturing to dispute the conclusions of the au- 

 thorities I have named, I feel myself somewhat in 

 the position of a dwarf, who, climbing on the 

 shoulder of a giant, should assume the airs of a 

 tall man; but for the encouragement and assistance 

 of the gentlemen I have named, I should probably 

 never have known how even to state a genea- 

 logical or antiquarian question. I shall conclude 

 by committing myself to your printer's mercy, 

 trusting that he will be too magnanimous to take 

 notice of my remarks on the "slip-slop" printing 

 of figures, which will sometimes occur in the best 

 offices ; if he should misprint my figures, all my 

 facts will fall to the ground. A. B. R. 



Belmont. 



In the Birch Collections at the British Museum 

 there is a transcript of a Table-Book of Robert 

 Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, made by Birch 

 (Add. MSS. 4161.), the following extract from 

 which, P. C. S. S. believes will not be unacceptable 

 to the readers of " Notes and Queries : " 



" The olde Countess of Desmond was a marryed 

 woman in Edward IV. 's time, of England, and lived 

 till towards the end of Queen Elizabeth, soe as she 

 needes must be 1 40 yeares old : shee had a newe sett 

 of teeth not long before her death, and might have 

 lived much longer, had shee not mett with a kind of 

 violent death ; for she must needes climb a nutt-tree 

 to gather nutts, soe falling downe, shee hurt her 

 thigh, whiclj brought a fever, and that fever brought 

 death. This my cosen Walter Fitzwilliam told me. 

 This olde lady, Mr. Harnet told me, came to petition 

 the Queen, and landing at Bristol, shee came on foote 

 to London, being then soe olde that her doughter was 

 decrepit, and not able to come with her, but was 

 brought in a little cart, their poverty not allowing 

 them better provision of meanes. As I remember, Sir 

 Walter Rowleigh, in some part of his History, speakes 

 of her, and says that he saw her in England, anno 1589. 

 Her death was as strange and remarkable as her long life 

 was, • — having seene the deaths of so many descended 

 from her ; and both her own and her husband's house 

 ruined in the rebellion and wars." 



P. c. s. s. 



COLLAR OF SS. 



(Vol. ii., p. 140. ; Vol. iv., pp. 147. 236. 456.) 



In my communication to you in August, 1850,. 

 and inserted as above, I stated that I was uncer- 

 tain whether the collar of SS. was worn by the 

 Chief Baron of the Exchequer previously to the- 

 reign of George I., as I had no portrait of that 

 functionary of an earlier date. 



I have since found, and I ought to have sent 

 you the fact before, that the Chief Baron, as well 

 as the two Chief Justices, was decorated with this 

 collar in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the 

 church of St. Stephen's, near Canterbury, is the 

 monument of Sir Roger Manwood, who died Lord 

 Chief Baron on December 14, 1592, on which his 

 bust appears in full judicial robes (coloured 

 proper), over which he wears the collar in its 

 modern form. Edward Foss. 



Was the collar of SS. worn by persons under 

 a vow to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or 

 to join a crusade, the S. being the initial letter 

 of Sepulcre, or SS. for Saint Sepulcre? The 

 appearance of the above-mentioned collar on the 

 effigy of a person in the habit of a pilgrim in the 

 church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch (see " Notes and 

 Queries," Vol. iv., p. 345.), so strongly confirms 

 the idea, that I beg leave to offer it to the consider- 

 ation of any readers of the " Notes and Queries " 

 who may be interested in the question. E. J. M. 



HejjItcS to Minax caucrfCiS. 



Tregonwell Frampton (Vol. iv., p. 474.). — Noble 

 mentions two engravings of this gentleman in the 

 Continuation to Granger, vol. ii. p. 387., from a 

 portrait by J. Wootton ; the oldest, by J. Faber, 

 describes him as " Royal Studkeeper at New- 

 market;" the other, dated 1791, by J. Jones, 

 styles him "the Father of the Turf;" and his 

 death in 1728, set. eighty- six, is recorded on a 

 monument in the parish church of All Saints, 

 Newmarket, as well as the circumstance of his 

 having been keeper of the running horses to 

 King William III. and his three royal successors. 



Frampton, according to Noble, who quotes from 

 some other author, was a thorough good groom 

 only, yet would have made a good minister of 

 state had he been trained to it, and no one in his 

 day was so well acquainted with the pedigrees of 

 race-horses. I am not aware of there being any 

 reference to Tregonwell Frampton in the Rambler, 

 but he has frequently been denounced as the au- 

 thor of an unparalleled act of barbarity to a race- 

 horse, which is detailed in the Adventurer, No. 37., 

 as delicately as such a subject would permit. In 

 justice to the accused I must say, that I always 

 considered the story as physically impossible; and 

 had this not been the case, it cannot be credited 



