7i 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"'i S. No 82., July 25. '67. 



work was here in Sabioneta, which is under the Govern^ 

 Dient of the Lord Viespizian Gonzaga Colonna, may his 

 Majesty be exalted. In the house of the Prince and the 

 noble, the glory of th(} Lord Rabbi Tobia Foa. May his 

 Kockand Redeemer preserve him. In the year 317=1557." 

 The book is in the Briti'ah Museum,] 



KING John's house at somertok. 

 (2"" S. iv. 28.) 



I offer my best than.ks to Balliol for his good 

 intentions in correctinj^f a supposed " great mis- 

 take" in my Monarchs retired from Business, 

 wherein I say that the^ French King John was 

 confined at Somerton, i;Q Lincolnshire. To show- 

 that I am correct, I refer your correspondent to 

 the Journal of the King's Expenses, published by 

 M. Douet d'Arcq, which refers to the last year of 

 his captivity ; and also to the article contributed 

 to the Philo-Biblion Sociesty's volume last year, by 

 the Due d'Aumale. The "journal" was printed 

 by the Societe de THisCoire de France. From 

 three sources I took my authority for asserting 

 that John was confined in Lincolnshire ; and at 

 Somerton I copied from the original French, 

 "Somerton dans le Corate de Lincoln." In a 

 transcript of the passage, the same words will be 

 found in one of the July numbers of the Courrier 

 de r Europe, 1 856. Here are authorities enough 

 to demonstrate that I spoke " by the card ; " and 

 they who look into the Due d'Aumale's paper 

 must be satisfied that the French King John was 

 never a prisoner at " Somerton in Somersetshire." 

 The memoir by the Due d'Aumale, founded on 

 papers discovered by His Royal Highness among 

 the archives of the House of Conde, was translated 

 in the GentlemarCs Magazine for October, 1856. 

 Therein the original passage referring to one of 

 the localities of the king's captivity is thus trans- 

 lated : "In December, 1358, steps were taken to 

 remove the King of France to the castle of So- 

 merton, in Lincolnshire." That John was con- 

 fined in Lincolnshire is further proved by two 

 circumstances. In the book of expenses above 

 referred to, there is an entry for the hiring of a 

 house at Lincoln for the autumnal quarter, in- 

 cluding expenses for work done, I65. ; and, more- 

 over, when the king's furniture, &c., was sold, on 

 his leaving " Somerton," one William Spain, of 

 Lincoln, got "the king's bench" for nothing. 



My own belief is, that " Somerton" is simply a 

 mistake on the part of the original book-keeper, 

 and should be " Soraercot," in Lincolnshire. And 

 this emendation I intend to make in a new edi- 

 tion of Monarehs retired from Business, which 

 Mr. Bentley informs me is now required, and for 

 which I beg to present to an indulgent public the 

 acknowledgments of their grateful servant, 



J. DoBAN. 



I think it will appear that the great mistake 

 has not been made by Dr. Doran, but by your 

 correspondent Balliol. I have never been in 

 Lincolnshire, yet I venture to say that there is a 

 Somerton Castle in that county. Some account 

 of it, with engravings, may be seen in Hudson 

 Turner's English Domestic Architecture, i. 172, 

 173. I venture further to state that there is most 

 conclusive evidence that King John of France 

 was there confined. See Rymer's Fcedera, vi. 

 113. 130, 131. 157—159. 161. 164. 167. 174, 175. 



The above cited records are not inconsistent 

 with his also having been confined at Somerton in 

 Somersetshire, but I imagine that BALLioii will 

 find it rather difficult to establish the fact by sub- 

 stantial evidence. Thompson Coopeb. 



Cambridge. 



Not knowing on what authority Dr. Doban 

 may have asserted that King John of France was 

 confined at one time in the castle of Somerton, in 

 Lincolnshire, I cannot pretend to say whether 

 your correspondent Balliol is right or not, in 

 calling the assertion a great mistake. But BAL- 

 Lioii himself has committed a great mistake, in 

 saying " There is no such place in Lincolnshire." 

 He may see a brief account of Somerton castle ; 

 that its builder was Anthony Bee, Bishop of Dur- 

 ham ; that the river Witham passes near it, in 

 Camden's Britannia, description of Lincolnshire. 

 And in Barth. Hovvlett's Selection of Views in the 

 County of Lincoln, published by Miller in 1801, 

 he may see an engraving of what remains of 

 Somerton Castle, and the ancient mansion attached 

 to its south-east tower ; and a vignette of the re- 

 mains of the north-east tower, with a letter-press 

 description filling a page and a half, in which its 

 distance from Lincoln is said to be eight mile? 

 along the Grantham road. H. W. 



POBTRAIT (profile) OF MABY STUABT. 



(2"'' S. iv. 13. 32.) 



Although, I believe, the Exhibition has closed, 

 the discussion of this unsatisfactory and bafiling 

 subject still goes on. In Taifs Magazine, in 

 1847, I published a notice of the engravings of 

 Mary collected by Mr. W. F. Watson, of Princes 

 Street, Edinburgh ; and in a more recent publica- 

 tion the following remarks regarding a pi'ofile of 

 Mary, the electrotype of which was given me by 

 an artist now deceased, of whom Canova declared 

 him to be the finest master of bas-relief in the 

 world — the late John Henning, the restorer of 

 the Elgin Marbles — of Phygaleian and Parathe- 

 naic friezes : 



" The most recent discoveries made in the course of 

 digging in Old Church Street [no matter where] were, a 

 small but extremely rare old coin of Queen Mary, which 



