544 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[No. 136. 



through the medium of the " N. & Q." and the 

 Navorscher, he could learn in whose possession 

 the MS. now is, and whether the owner would be 

 inclined to dispose of it for a moderate price. 



GENERAL PARDONS. 



(Vol. v., p. 496.) 



In reference to the pardon to John Trenchard, 

 Esq., here communicated in answer to me, I re- 

 quest permission, in the first place, to present my 

 acknowledgments to Mr. E. S. Taylor for his 

 courtesy ; and, in the next, to explain the motive 

 of my inquiry. I was about to print a very long 

 document of this nature, which was issued on the 

 2nd Jan., 12 Car. IL (1660-1), In favour of 

 Colonel Richard Beke, who had married a cousin 

 of the Protector Cromwell. It appeared to me pro- 

 bable that some general pardon had been already 

 printed, and I wished either to avoid the needless 

 repetition should the pardon to Colonel Beke 

 prove to be in the ordinary form, or, at least, to 

 make a comparison between that and other records 

 of the same class. I could not, however, ascertain 

 that any general pardon had been printed, nor 

 have I hitherto heard of any. The pardon to 

 Colonel Beke has been printed for The Topo' 

 grapher and Genealogist, but is not yet published. 

 It occupies nearly seven large octavo pages, and 

 consequently is much longer than that granted to 

 Mr. Trenchard: speaking freely, it is between 

 three and four times as long. It is evidently 

 formed on a different and more ample precedent ; 

 but perhaps the main difference consists in its 

 having relation to the tenure of landed property, 

 and not merely to the simple pardon of offences 

 conferred in the grant made to Trenchard, though, 

 from the enumeration introduced in it of all ima- 

 ginable offences and crimes, political and moral, 

 it is certainly more quaint and extraordinary. 



I much regret that the pardon to Trenchard 

 has not been presented in extenso to the readers 

 of " N. & Q. ; " for the contractions and very 

 irregular punctuation will render it almost unin- 

 telligible to those who are not conversant with 

 other documents of the kind. The following 

 words are actually misprinted. In line 3. " he" 

 for I're (literse) ; line 12. " nuncupabatur " (one 

 word); col. 2. line 1. " Jud'camenta " for In- 

 dictamenta, and " condempnac'onas " for con- 

 dempnationes ; line 3. and again line 14. " fforis- 

 futur " for forisfactiones ; line 23. " n're " for 

 nostri ; line 34. " existim't" for existunt; line 37. 

 "p'lite"" for placitetur; line 39. "mea parte" for 

 in ea parte ; last line, " p'rato " for privato. 



It is also necessary to correct the error into 

 which Mr. Taylor has fallen in supposing that 

 this pardon was granted on the 7 th of December, 

 1688. The date it bears, "decimo septimo die 



Decembris anno regni nostri tertio," refers to a 

 year earlier, viz., the 7th of December, 1687. 

 The Revolution occurred in the fourth year of the 

 reign of James II. " Mr. Trenchard of the 

 Middle Temple" was clearly the same who was 

 afterwards Sir John, and Secretary of State to 

 King William. See the biographical notice of 

 him appended to the pedigree of Trenchard in 

 Hutchins's History of Dorsetshire^ in which work 

 two portraits of him are given. He had been 

 engaged in Monmouth's rebellion ; and it is said 

 that he was at dinner with Mr. William Speke at 

 Ilminster, when the news arrived of Monmouth's 

 defeat at Sedgmoor. Speke was shortly after 

 hung before his own door; whilst at the same 

 time, having secreted himself, Trenchard had the 

 good fortune to be embarking for the continent. 

 The other John Trenchard mentioned by Mr.^ 

 Taylor as occurring among the regicides, was 

 great-uncle to Sir John, who was only forty-six 

 at his death in 1694. John Gougii Nichols. 



Macaulay may be right about the great seal 

 notwithstanding Trenchard's pardon. It is just 

 possible such documents may have been kept 

 ready " cut and dried " for filling up. Charles I. 

 began to reign March 27, 1625. I know of a 

 pardon dated Feb. 10th in the first year of his 

 reign, with the great seal of James I. appended. 

 Surely it did not take eleven months to cut a new 

 great seal, which seems the likeliest way of ac- 

 counting for the use of the old one. P. P. 



THE DODO. 



(Vol.v., pp.463. 515.) 



I beg to inclose the copy of a letter received by 

 me in reply to my inquiry respecting the specimen 

 of a dodo said to be at the house of Sir John 

 Trevehjan, Bart., Nettlecombe Park, Somersetshire, 

 a notice of which appeared in " N. & Q." pub- 

 lished on the 15th ultimo. I shall feel much 

 obliged if you will have the kindness to publish 

 the same as an answer to Mr. Winn's Query. 



A. D. Bartlett. 



" Sir, 

 " I wish I could confirm the truth of the inforni- 

 ation given to Mr. W'inn, which I think It is 

 scarcely necessary for me to say is entirely incor- 

 rect : and how such a report could have originated 

 it is difficult to understand ; unless by supposing 

 that a member of the family when at Nettlecombe, 

 in their childhood, had seen a stuffed specimen of 

 the large bustard; and that this, in the course of 

 years, had been magnified in their imaginative 

 and indistinct recollection into a dodo. I admired 

 much your restoration of the dodo at the Great 

 Exhibition ; which, judging from the old pictures 

 and known remains of the bird, gives, I think, a^ 

 very good idea of what It was. I do not know of 



