Oct. 16. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



36: 



Family of Thoresby the Antiquary. — Can any 

 of your correspondents inform ine whether there 

 are any direct descendants, now living, of Ralph 

 Thoresby, author of the Topography of Leeds ? 



The Rev. Joseph Hunter, editor of Thoresby's 

 Diary, says : 



" Thoresby (who died In 1725) left his wife sur- 

 ■viving, and two sons and a daughter. Both the sons 

 were clergymen. Ralph, the elder, died Rector of 

 Stoke Newington in 1763 ; Richard, the younger son, 

 had the church of St. Catherine, Coleman Street, and 

 died in 1774. The daughter, Grace, married a Mr. 

 John Wood of Leeds, and had a son named Ralph, 

 who [was a hosier at Nottingham in 1746, and] died in 

 •1781, and is supposed to have been the last surviving 

 descendant of Thoresby." 



A correspondent of the Oenfleman^s Magazine 

 (vol. liii. p. 322.) says the Rector of Newington 

 certainly died without issue, but that he had been 

 informed that Richard, the younger son, had two 

 sons and a daughter ; that the two sons were in 

 the Black Hole at Calcutta, where one of them 

 died. T. M. 



Leeds. 



Story of a French Bishop. — It is stated in the 

 Retrospective Review, vol. xii. p. 9L, that — 



" There is a story of a French bishop, who declared 

 on his death-bed that he had never administered the 

 sacrament in earnest, for the purpose of invalidating 

 the ordination of all who had received orders at his 

 hands." 



Is this statement correct ? and, if so, who is the 

 bishop alluded to ? Cheverells. 



jRoyal Scandals. — Miss Strickland, in her Lives 

 of the Queens of England, vol. viii. pp. 234-5., says 

 of Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I. : 



" The gossips of the Court now resumed the story 

 [1660—1], that she was secretly married to [Henry 

 Lord Jermyn, lately created Earl of St. Albans] : of 

 this we cannot gather a particle of evidence." 



Again, vol. viii. pp. 457-8., she says of Catharine 

 of Braganza, Queen of Charles II. : 



" The favour with which she was suspected of re- 

 garding him, obtained for him [Lord Feversham] the 

 nickname of King Dowager." 



She goes on to quote the testimony of Mary Bea- 

 trice, Queen of James II., in her favour, and then 

 observes : 



" The testimony of so virtuous a queen is certainly 

 quite sufficient to acquit her royal sister-in-law of one 

 of those unsupported scandals." 



May I ask your readers, well versed in the co- 

 temporary literature of these reigns, whether the 

 reputed marriage of Henrietta Maria is really 

 without "a particle of evidence;" and whether 

 Catharine's partiality for Feversham is quite " un- 

 ^supported" by evidence. Tewars. 



Notices to Correspondents. — Can any of your 

 contributors tell me when the London morning 

 papers first began to give up the practice of in- 

 serting Notices to Correspondents, and giving a 

 reason for the rejection of communications ? In 

 the earlier years of most members of the press, 

 they had them, and found them useful too. 

 Woodfall corresponded with Junius almost solely 

 in this way. Query, Would it not have been im- 

 possible for Junius to write under the present 

 laws of the press ? A Subscriber. 



Highlands and Lowlands. — Between what two 

 points on the western and eastern coasts of Scot- 

 land is the line drawn which separa'es the High- 

 lands from the Lowlands ? Is it mathematically 

 straight, and purely arbitrary, or heraldically 

 wavy or indented, and marked out by any bound- 

 aries, natural, artificial, or conventional ? Is it 

 accurately laid down by statute and map, or 

 vaguely by tradition ? C. Forbes. 



Temple. 



Diaries of the Time of James I. — Can any of your 

 correspondents tell me if there are any published 

 Diaries of the period between 1610 — 1624, or per- 

 sonal narratives of those who hung about the court 

 during that period, — the more extensive the list 

 the better. Ignoramus. 



[Consult The Court of King James I , by Dr. Godfrey 

 Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, edited by John S. 

 Brewer, M.A., 2 vols., 1839. Secret History of the 

 Court of James I. : containing, 1. Osborne's Traditional 

 Memoirs; 2. Sir Ant. Weldon's Court and Character 

 of King James; .S. Aulicus Coquinariae; 4. Sir Edw. 

 Peyton's Divine Catastrophe of the House of Stuarts, 

 with Notes by Sir Walter Scott, 2 vols., 1811. Sir 

 Dudley Carleton's Letters during his Embassy in Hol- 

 land, 4to., 1775. Arthur Cayley's Life of Sir Walter 

 Raleigh, 4to., 2 vols., 1805. Lucy Aikin's Memoirs of 

 the Court of James I., 2 vols., 1 822. Catherine Ma- 

 cauley's History of England, from the Accession of 

 James I. to the Restoration of Charles IT., 4to., 6 vols,, 

 1778. Nichols's Progresses and Public Processions of 

 James I., 4to., 4 vols., 1828. Birch's Life of Henry 

 Prince of Wales, Son of James /., 1760. Coke's Detec- 

 tion of the Court and State of England, from James L. to 

 the Interregnum, 3 vols., 1719. Noble's Historical Ge- 

 nealogy of the Royal House of Stwirts, 4to., 1795. Dai- 

 ry mple's Memorials and Letters relating to the History of 

 Britain in the Reign of James I., 2 vols., 1766, and 

 Hume's History of the Reigns of James I., Charles /., 

 the Commonwealth, Charles II., and James II., 2 vols., 

 1754-7.] • 



Sich House. — What is the meaning of the word 

 sich ? In BoUington, near Mncclesfield, there is a, 

 farm called the " Sich House Farm," and, in an 

 old deed of property two miles distant in the 

 same township, the words sich houses occur as the 



