154 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[^•"i S. VIII. Aug. 20. '59. 



dows of them left. One of these is the ceremony 

 on the first day of Term. The Lord Chancellor's 

 reception of the judges still continues, but I be- 

 lieve is now limited to two of the Terms. I am 

 not able to say what entertainment his Lordship 

 gives them ; but probably some dignified corre- 

 spondent, who has the privilege of entree, will 

 condescend to tell your readers whether the 

 " brewed wine" and " biskett wafers" now form a 

 part of it ? We have still the procession to West- 

 minster Hall, though somewhat curtailed in its 

 grandeur ; but I am not certain whether the 

 friendly greeting of the Serjeants at the door of 

 the Common Pleas — which "many a time and 

 oft" I have witnessed in the days of my youth — 

 still takes place, for it is many and many a year 

 since I was present on the occasion. 



The extract given by H. shows that the manner 

 of the procession, " whither on horse or in coach," 

 was then in a transition state ; and therefore most 

 probably in the reign of Charles IL, as will pre- 

 sently appear. But if H. would inform us the 

 name of the Lord Chancellor in whose family this 

 record exists, we should then have a better means 

 of confirmation. 



How soon these processions began, history does 

 not communicate. That previously to the reign 

 of Queen Mary the judges were mounted on 

 mules we learn from Dugdale (Origines, p. 38.), 

 who tells us that Mr. Justice Whiddon, in 1 Mary, 

 " was the first of the Judges who rode to West- 

 minster Hall on a Horse or Gelding, for before 

 that time they rode on Mules." 



Horses, we may presume, were henceforward 

 adopted for the next century ; for we find the fol- 

 lowing entry in Pepys's Diary (ed. 1854, vol. i. 

 p. 116.) on October 23, 1660 : " I met the Lord 

 Chancellor and all the Judges riding on horse- 

 back, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the 

 first day of Term." 



And yet in January, 1673, not thirteen years 

 after, Roger North {Exameti, p. 56.) speaks of 

 the procession on horseback as the revival of an 

 old cuxtom, leaving one to ^nfer that there was a 

 much longer interval since it was practised. It is 

 too entertaining and picturesque to omit :^ — 



" His Lordship (Lord Shaftesbury) had an early fancy, 

 or rather freak, the first day of the Term (when all the 

 ofiicers of the Law, King's Counsel and Judges, used to 

 wait upon the Great Seal to Westminster Hall) to make 

 this procession on Horseback, as in old time the way was 

 when Coaches were not so rife. And accordingly the 

 Judges were spoken to, to get Horses, as they and all the 

 rest did bj' borrowing or hiring, and so equipped them- 

 selves with black foot-cloaths in the best manner they 

 could : and diverse of the nobility, as usual, in compli- 

 ment and honour to a new Lord Chancellor, attended also 

 in their equipments. Upon notice in Town of this Caval- 

 cade, all the shew Company took their places at Win- 

 dows and Balconies, with the Foot Guard in the Streets, 

 to partake of the fine sight ; and being once settled for 

 the March, it moved, aa the design was, statelily along. 



But when they came to straights and interruptions, for 

 want of gravitj' in the beasts, or too much in the riders, 

 there happened some curvetting, which made no little 

 disorder. Judge Twisden, to his great affright and the 

 consternation of his grave brethren, was laid along in the 

 dirt ; but all at length arrived safe, without loss of life or 

 limb in the service. This accident was enough to divert 

 the like frolic for the future; and the very next Term 

 after, they fell to their Coaches as before." 



And so for two hundred years they have pro- 

 ceeded without change. AVhether coaches were 

 ever used in procession in the reigns of Elizabeth, 

 James I., or Charles I., and whether there was 

 any procession in the time of the Commonwealth, 

 I must leave to others to record. Edavaed Foss. 



Churchill House, Dover. 



MOUNT ST. MICHAEL, NORMANDT. 



(2"'' S. viii. 111.) 



In answer to your correspondent A. D. C, I 

 can refer him to the following works, in which he 

 will find the information he desires : — 



" Histoire de la c^lfebre Abbaye du Mont Saint-Michel, 

 par Dom. Haynes." (This writer quitted the monastery 

 for the Abbey of St. Germain des Pr^s, where he died in 

 1651.) 



" Histoire abr^g^e du Mont St.-Michel avec les Motifs 

 pour en faire le P^lerignage, par un Religieux de la Con- 

 gregation de St. Maur, in 12., Avranches, Lecourt, 1661." 



" Le Voyage au Mont Saint-Michel, fait avec M. 

 Chamboi, fils du Gouverneur de Caen, qui fut nomme 

 Capitaine de deux cents jeunes gens qui furent dans le 

 Voj-age." M. de Saint-JMartin (the famous Abbd de Saint 

 Martin) fut nomme du Pelerignage. (This visit oc- 

 curred in 1647.) 



" Voyage en Basse Normandie et Descript. Hist, du 

 Mont Saint-Michel, par De la Roque. Mercure de 1726 

 et 1733." 



"Notice Hist, et Topog. du Mont Saint-Michel, de 

 Tombelene et d'Avranches, par M. Blondel. Edit, de 

 1813." 



" Voyage au Mont Saint-Michel, au Mont Dol, et k la 

 Roche aux Fees, par La Houssaye." 



" Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, by Cotman 

 and Turner, 1822." 



" Le Mont Saint-Michel, par Charles Nodier, dans les 

 * Annates Romantiques,' 1825." 



" Recherches sur le Mont Saint-Michel, par M. de 

 Gerville, 1828." 



" De I'Etat Ancien et Actuel de la Bale du Mont Saint- 

 Michel, by I'Abb^ Manet, 1829." 



" Histoire Pittoresque du Mont Saint-Michel, par Maxi- 

 milien Raoul, 1834." 



"Le Mont Saint Michel, Sonnets, par M. Julien Tra- 

 vers, 1834." 



" An Architectural Tour in Normandv, by Gaily 

 Knight." 



" Du Mont Saint-Michel en peril de Mer, par M. 

 Maudhuy, 1835." 



" Histoire du Mont Saint-Michel, par M. Desroches, 

 1839." 



« Le Mont Saint-Michel,' par M. Ephrem Houel, 1839." 



" Notice Historique sur le Mont Saint- Michel, par M. 

 Boudent-Godelinifere." 



" Le Mont Saint Michel au peril de la Mer, par M. 

 Tre'butien, 1841." 



