S"* S. VIII. Oct. 22. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



329 



North Wales. Any information which any of 

 your readers can afford me will be thankfully ac- 

 cepted. I am told that the church of St. John 

 the Baptist in Chester contains memorials of 

 them. H. A. D. 



Scotch Clergy deprived at the Revolution. — Can 

 any reader refer me to a list of the episcopal 

 clergy deprived by the Scots Council in 1689, and 

 subsequently, for their refusal to conform to the 

 Revolution settlement ? One of these was Mr. 

 Thomas Strachan, minister of St. Martin's, Perth- 

 shire, A.B., whose ancestors had been ministers of 

 that parish from the Reformation. What became 

 of him afterwards ? J. A. P. 



Rings : their Uses and Mottoes. — Can any reader 

 oblige by saying if any book has been published 

 on such subject ? Glwysig. 



" Oidd Grouse in the Gun-Room" — Can any of 

 your correspondents throw any light upon the 

 story of " Ould grouse in the gun-room," alluded 

 to in Act II. Sc. 1. of She Stoops to Conquer ? * 



, H. C. 



Vindicta Bernardi. — Amongst the additional 

 matter printed by Hearne in the second volume 

 of Liher Niger, at p. 501., I find the following 

 piece of historical information : — 



" Mense Jan* Katerina ducissa Norfolchise juvencula 

 setatis fere ^^' (lxxx. ?) annorum maritata est Johanni 



Widevill fratri reginje setatis xx annorum, maritagium dia- 

 bolicum I Vindicta Bernardi inter eosdeni postea patiiit." 



What is meant by Vindicta Bernardi ? 



E. H. A. 



[St. Bernard, though honoured as a divine by Protest- 

 ants as well as Romanists, appears to have been some- 

 what addicted to the practice of denouncing and invoking, 

 on those who had incurred his displeasure, the judgments 

 of Heaven. And, what made it worse, the judgments were 

 supposed to follow ! He was preaching on one occasion 

 at the church of Viridefolium, a place so called from the 

 extreme fruitfulness of its soil (Verfeuil, or Verfeil, in the 

 dioc. of Toulouse), when, being treated with contempt by 

 the inhabitants, he walked forth from the place, looked 

 back on it, " et makdixit, dicens, Viridefolium, desiccet te 

 Deus." The malediction took effect; "ex tunc" the 

 place sank into poverty ; and an ej- ewitness records hav- 

 ing himself seen the chief man of Verfeuil living at 

 Toulouse, aged 100, in extreme indigence! (Act. Sand , 

 Aug. 20, p. 202.) Such was the vindicta Bernardi. On 

 another occasion, Bernard is stated to have expressly 

 menaced the King of the French (Louis-le-Gros) with 

 the death of his eldest son, as a " vindicta ccelestis." — 

 "Ludovico Crasso, Stephanum episcopum Parisiensem 



[* This Query appeared in our 1" S. x. 223., but failed 

 to elicit a reply. Since that time Mr. Forster, in his in- 

 teresting Life of Goldsmith, ii. 361., repeats the Query as 

 follows : " Surely it must have been a real story, and 

 can no F. S. A. exhume it, so as to tell us what itAvas? " 

 — Ed.] 



vexanti, scribit ac niinatur S. Bernardus mortem filii 

 ejus, quce etiam secuta est." — "Cui impcenitentiae Ber- 

 nardus Abbas ir-am ccelestem vindicem instare, denunciasse 

 ferlur." — " Quin et Bernardum addidisse severas minas, et 

 ccelestem vindictam, ni resipisceret, affutnram in brevi." — 

 Act. Sanct., Aug. 20, p. 131. The actual death of the 

 prince (Philip), by a fall from his horse, followed shortly 

 after ! 



Kespecting the " maritagium diabolicum " recorded in 

 our correspondent's extract from the Liber Niger, we are 

 indebted for some curious particulars to Miss Strickland, 

 in her life of Elizabeth Woodville, consort of Edw. IV. 

 One of the queen's first objects was " the advancement 

 of her own relatives; " and "neither infantine juvenility 

 nor the extreme of dotage seems to have been objected 

 by the Woodvilles, if there were a superfluity of the 

 goods of this world ; for the queen's eldest brother, a fine 

 young man, wedded, for her great jointure, Katherine, 

 the dowager duchess of Norfolk, then in her eightieth 

 year — 'a diabolical marriage,' wrathfuUy exclaims Wil- 

 liam of Worcester." — Vol. ii. pp. 331-2. 



As the denunciations of S. Bernard, addressed to the 

 King of the French, were fulfilled by the disastrous death 

 of the heir apparent, so this " maritagium diabolicum," 

 also, was followed by a family disaster; for the same 

 .brother of the queen, John, who had contracted the al- 

 liance, being taken prisoner with his father after the 

 battle of Edgecote, they were both beheaded. This coin- 

 cidence in the two cases, a domestic calamity following 

 in each, appears to be the reason why the chronicler, in 

 the latter instance, applies the term " vindicta Bernardi." 

 (" Vindicta Bernardi apud eosdem postea patuit.") On 

 one occasion we find Bernard himself severely reprobating 

 a proposed marriage, because canonicallv prohibited. 

 (^orA'S, 1690, Ep. 371.) 



We may also understand, by the aid of Miss Strickland's 

 researches, why the Woodville "marriage" is styled 

 "diabolical." — "This alludes," as she observes, "to an 

 old English, proverb on marriage, — 'That the marriage of 

 a young woman and a young man is of God's making, as 

 Adam and Eve ; an old man and a young woman of Our 

 Lady's making, as Mary and Joseph; but that' of an old 

 woman and a young man, is made bi/ the author of evil' " 

 (p. 332. note). The "maritagium" with the rich old 

 dowager, however, was the more decidedly "diabolicum" 

 for another reason; because the mother of Elizabeth 

 Woodville was shrewdly suspected of using magical arts, 

 specially in promoting the aggrandisement of her family.] 



Jetonniers. — What is the meaning of this word, 

 applied, I believe, to the members of the French 

 Academy in the reign of Louis XIV. ? 



James Delano. 



[ Jeton was properly a counter, of the kind used by card- 

 players. In a more extended sense, jeton de presence was 

 the counter handed, at the sittings of certain societies, to 

 each member present, as an evidence of his having at- 

 tended. Specially, jeton de presence, or jeton d'academie, 

 was the silver counter delivered to every member present at 

 the sittings of the Academic Fran^aise ; and, ultimatelj'-, 

 the expression stood for a certain sum allowed instead of 

 the counter. Hence the term jetonniers was invidiously 

 applied to those members who were supposed to attend 

 regularly for the mere purpose of receiving their jeton, 

 without contributing personally to the splendour of the as- 

 semblage ; and Furetifere is even charged with applying the 

 term to some who were both excellent authors and illus- 

 trious academicians. It is well known with what ribaldry 

 the French academicians were constantly assailed by 

 some of their literary brethren, Avho had not obtained 

 adnuttance into the number of the chosen Forty.] 



