2»* 8. No 41., OoT. 11, '66.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



281 



LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER U. 1856. 

 GOTZ VON BERLICHINGEN WITH THE lEON HAND. 



To English readers this personage is well known 

 as the hero of Goethe's tragedy of that name, 

 translated by Sir Walter Scott, in 1799. He 

 nourished in the reign of Maximilian I., and is 

 represented as a zealous chann)ion for the privi- 

 leges of the free-knights, in opposition to the 

 princes and bishops. In consequence of the feuds 

 m which he was engaged (contrary to the Edict 

 of 1495), he was repeatedly laid under tlie ban of 

 the Empire. This is all we learn of him from 

 Scott's meagre preface to his translation, but he 

 refers to a Life of Gotz published at Nuremberg 

 in 1731, and to Meusel's Inquiry into History, 

 vol. iv. Goethe terms Gotz "the mirror of knight- 

 hood, noble and merciful in prosperity, dauntless 

 and true in misfortune." However true this may 

 be, the excesses committed by the forces under 

 his guidance obtained him a very evil reputation 

 among the religious communities whose buildings 

 or treasures were spoliated by the undisciplined 

 mob. A remarkable and interesting piece of evi- 

 dence on this subject is afforded by a memorandum 

 made in a Latin Evangeliary of the fourteenth 

 century, formerly belonging to the monastery of 

 Amerbach, not far from Nordlingen, in Bavaria, 

 which was sold by auction a few years since at 

 Puttick and Simpson's rooms, in which the follow- 

 ing testimony is recorded against the iron-handed 

 champion : 



"Anno do. 1525, facta est desolacio hujus libri, auro, 

 argento, gemmisqiie tecti, in vigilia P[h]ilippi et Jacobi, 

 a quodatn nobilitaris {sic) titulo insignito, Goez de Ber- 

 lingen nomine, et alio rnsticanas fecis antesignano, Georgio 

 a Ballenbergk ; lanio arte, factis vero et artibus homine 

 pertido, latrone, et proprii honoris prodigo ; cleri, nobili- 

 tatis, ac proprii doniini, contra evangelicas tocius qiioque 

 naturalis legis sanctiones persequutore infestissimo ; ec- 

 clesiarum insuper et religiosorum locorum devastatore et 

 exterminatore atrocisslmo." 



The damaged state of the volume, bereft of its 

 costly covering of gold, silver, and gems, and with 

 some of the leaves sacrilegiously torn out, may 

 perhaps be considered to have afforded sufRcient 

 provocation to counterbalance the exceeding 

 wrath and bad Latin of the monkish writer of the 

 memorandum, who' may very possibly have been 

 the librarian of Amerbach, when the ruthless 

 hands of Gotz or his men were laid on the vo- 

 lume. In recent times, however, the library of 

 Amerbach has been subjected to still greater de- 

 vastation, and the manuscripts, I believe, entirely 

 dispersed. Many of these, after a devious course, 

 have found, by my means, a resting-place in the 

 British Museum ; where, it is to be hoped, no bad 

 imitator of the iron-fisted Gotz von Berlichingen, 

 or his followers, may violate their integrity. 



F. Madden. 



PETITIONS OP DK. TITDS GATES. 



Dr. Titus Gates is a name which in English 

 history will be handed down to posterity covered 

 with obloquy : his daring insinuations, and the 

 pertinacity with which he adhered to them ; in 

 short, his villanous perjuries, which involved in 

 disgrace and ruin many innocent persons, under 

 the pretext of their being participators in the 

 Popish Plot, have earned for him a reputation 

 worthy only of himself; he is known to us but to 

 be despised, while even the cruel treatment to 

 which he was submitted will not gain for him any 

 pity. To all readers of our history the particulars 

 of the celebrated Popish Plot are well known, and 

 the machinations of Dr. Titus Gates have been 

 detailed to us afresh by Mr. Macaulay : I am not 

 therefore about to speak of any facts with which 

 we are already familiar, but shall proceed to lay 

 before your readers two petitions of Dr. Gates to 

 the king, in the year 1697, which have never, to 

 my knowledge, yet been published. They are 

 now deposited in the Public Record Gffice. The 

 first one is entirely in Gates's handwriting ; the 

 other is neatly written on a large open sheet of 

 paper, and was only signed by him ; the signatures 

 however have both been cut out at some time 

 previously to the documents being transferred 

 from the Treasury to the Public Record GfHce, 

 but when, it is not now possible to determine. 



Charles II., in reward of G.ites's services in dis- 

 closing the supposed plot, allowed him a pension 

 of forty pounds per month, which was afterwards 

 withdrawn ; he was then prosecuted for perjury, 

 and received a severe sentence, which was carried 

 out in an extreme manner (see Macaulay's HiS' 

 tory of England, vol. i. p. 484.). Gn the accession 

 of William III. he was restored to his pension, 

 but in the year 1693 the payments were discon- 

 tinued, and he made repeated applications to the 

 king, but without success ; at last in the year 

 1697 he petitioned the king thus : 



" May it please yo"^ Ma*K 

 " I throw my self at your Mat>«^» feet and humbly begg 

 that you would graciously be pleased to take my de- 

 plorable condition into your Royal Consideration, I having 

 been debarred of the pension your Ma*'" was pleased to 

 restore me unto at your accession to the Crowne. I have 

 contracted severall debts for which I am everj' day 

 threatened to bee cast into Prison, and T there must 

 perish unles your Ma"" of your Princely goodness do 

 order mee the sum of SOOli, which will in a great measure 

 deliver mee and save my poor self and family from ruine 

 and distraction. I have not clothes worthy to appeare 

 before your Ma*!®, and therefore I humhly present this 

 Memoriall and lay it at your Royall Feet. 

 " I am, 



"Sr, 



" Yo'' Ma"''^ most humble and Loyall 

 and DutifuU subject and Servant." 

 (In dorso) 

 "21 Apr. 1697. Read. 

 " The King will give no more than his allowance." 



