36a 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 155. 



tion and strong good sense. With renewed health 

 and spirits his lordship's enjoyment of country life 

 increased, his property improved by care, and, 

 above all, a beautiful progeny surrounded him 

 and their devoted domestic mother, who affection- 

 ately closed his eyes in peace, receiving his parting 

 blessing many years after his happy choice I E. D. 



Minor ^atti. 



Unwritten Historical Minutice. — Events of a 

 common order, handed down from sire to son, may 

 be unworthy of the " dignity of history," but they 

 are sometimes interesting. Two or three of this 

 kind have come to my knowledge, and I forward 

 one of them to the " N. & Q.," with a view to their 

 publicity, if they are deemed of sufficient import- 

 ance. 



An elderly acquaintance of mine had a great- 

 uncle, who died in the year 1818, aged ninety- 

 three. This person remembered hearing his grand- 

 father speak of Charles I. passing through the 

 village ofHugglescote, Leicestershire, with a party 

 of cavalry. They halted at the village inn, then 

 kept by a person named Robert Hall, the soldiers 

 being drawn up in line in front of the inn, while a 

 servant carried a milkpail full of ale from trooper 

 to trooper, in which was a jug, with which each 

 man supplied himself with a draught of the be- 

 verage. The party did not dismount, but the 

 officers did, one of the party taking his horse to 

 the village blacksmith to be shod. When the 

 farrier turned up the horse's foot to examine the 

 shoe, he observed the initials C. R., mounted by a 

 crown, and he immediately suspected it was the 

 king's horse. He asked the principal person of 

 the party if he had the honour of shoeing the 

 king's horse. The person spoken to replied he 

 had, and that he was the king. The blacksmith 

 immediately fell on his knees in reverence to the 

 king, who bade him rise and shoe the horse well, 

 and entered into conversation with him in an 

 affable and pleasant manner. The horse being 

 shod, the party rode off rapidly, as they had ar- 

 rived, apparently as if closely pursued by an 

 enemy. 



The incident was also told to my friend's great- 

 uncle by the grandson of the blacksmith, who 

 heard it related by the eye-witness himself. 



Jayte'e. 



Family Likenesses and Wicliffe Family. — 

 There have been Queries in" N. & Q." both as to 

 family likeness in descendants, and as to Wicliffe's 

 origin. The following note from Surtees' Durham, 

 vol. iv. p. 132., refers to both : 



*' Katherine, wife of Rev. Peter Fisher, Rector of 

 Cockfield, was daughter of Francis Wycliffe of Whorl- 

 toii. She bore a striking resemblance to a portrait of 

 the Reformer Wycliffe which hung in Mr. Fisher's 



parlour, and which was given him by Marmaduke 

 Tunstall, Esq. She died in 1788, aged seventy-six." 



J. R. M., M.A. 



cattcrtr^. 



POLISH CUSTOM AT THE REPETITION OF THE 

 CREED. 



Wheatly," in his Rational Illustration of t1ie 

 Book of Common Prayer, tells us that the Creed 



" Is to be repeated standing, to signify our resolution to 

 stand up stoutly in the defence of it. And in Poland 

 and Lithuania the nobles used formerly to draw their 

 swords, in token that, if need were, tliey would defend 

 and seal the truth of it with their blood." — Page 147, 

 Oxford, 1839. 



In his note I find this reference, " See Durell's 

 View, Sfc, sect. i. 24. p. 37." Wheatly speaks as if 

 this interesting custom had become a matter of 

 history, but when Dr. South wrote his most in- 

 structive letter to Dr. Edward Pococke, which is 

 dated Dantzic, December 16, 1677, the Poles 

 seem as a body to have unsheathed their swords in 

 part at the reading of any portion of the Gospel. 

 He sa^'S : 



" Amongst other things worthy of remark, I observed 

 here, for I never thought it a damnable sin (like our 

 sectarists in England, who call themselves by the soft 

 names of Protestant Dissenters) to be acquainted with 

 their ceremonies at saying mass, that whilst any part 

 of the Gospel was reading, every man dreio his sword 

 half way out of its scabbard, to testifie his forwardness 

 to defend the Christian Faith, which has been a custom 

 put in practice throughout all Poland, ever since the 

 reign of King Micislaus, who was the first of that 

 character in this kingdom who embraced Christianity, 

 in the year of our Lord 964, and was the first sove- 

 reign prince of it that renounced Paganism." — South's 

 Posthumous Works, T^. 4\.: Lond. 1717, Svo. 



~ Wheatly and South are, I suppose, alluding ta 

 different parts of the same custom, and perhaps 

 some of your correspondents may know whether 

 any traces of it remain at the present, or did re- 

 main to a period later than Wheatly. Rt. 

 Warmington. 



SIR ABRAHAM SHIPMAN, KSIGHT ; WILLIAM 

 COCKAYNE, ETC. 



Who was Sir Abraham Shipman ; to what fa- 

 mily did he belong ; and where did he reside ? 

 I find him mentioned as a legatee in two wills 

 about the middle of the seventeenth century : 

 William Methold, Esq., of Hall House, Kensington, 

 and South Pickenham, co. Norfolk, by his will, 

 dated Feb. 28, 1652-3, and proved April 15, 1653, 

 bequeaths 50/. to his friend Sir Abraham Ship- 

 man, Kt., and a like sum to Mrs. Margaret Ship- 

 man, his daughter ; Aaron Mico, Esq., merchant 



