68 



NOTES AND QUEMES. 



[No. 168. 



did not follow that the priest of Hymen should be 



of the clerical profession : 



" To tie the knot," says John Hope, " there needed 

 none ; 

 He'd find a clown, in brown, or gray, 

 Booted and spurr'd, should preach and pray ; 

 And, without stir, grimace, or docket, 

 Lug out a pray'r-book from his pocket ; 

 And tho' he blest in wond'rous haste, 

 Should tie them most securely fast." 



Thoughts, 1780. 



In Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, there is 

 a slight allusion to these Canongate marriages : 



" The White Horse Inn," says he, " in a close in 

 the Canongate, is an exceedingly interesting old house 

 of entertainment. It was also remarkable for the run- 

 away couples from England, who were married in its 

 large room." 



The White Hart, in the Grass-market, appears 

 to have been another of these Gretna Green 

 houses. 



A curious fellow, well known in Edinburgh at 

 the period referred to, was the high priest of the 

 Canongate hymeneal altar. I need hardly say 

 this was the famous " Claudero, the son of Nim- 

 rod the Mighty Hunter," as he grandiloquently 

 styled himself: otherwise James Wilson, a dis- 

 graced schoolmaster, and poet-laureate to the Edin- 

 burgh canaille. In the large rooms of the above 

 inns, this comical fellow usually presided, and 

 administered relief to gallant swains and love-sick 

 damsels, and a most lucrative trade he is said to 

 have made of it : — 



" Claudero's skull is ever dull. 

 Without the sterling shilling :" 



in allusion to their being called half-merk or 

 shilling marriages. 



Chambers gives an illustrative anecdote of our 

 subjects' matrimonial practices in that of a soldier 

 and a countryman seeking from Wilson a cast of 

 his office : from the first Claudero took his shil- 

 ling, but demanded from the last a fee of five, 

 observing — 



" I'll hae this sodger ance a week a' the times he's 

 in Edinburgh, and you (the countryman) I winna see 

 again." 



The Scottish poetical antiquary is familiar with 

 this eccentric character ; but it may not be uninte- 

 resting to your general readers to add, that when 

 public excitement in Edinburgh ran high against 

 the Kirk, the lawyers, meal-mongers, or other 

 rogues in grain, Claudero was the vehicle through 

 which the democratic voice found vent in squibs 

 and broadsides fired at the offending party or 

 obnoxious measure from his lair in the Canongate. 



In his Miscellanies, Edin. 1766, now before me, 

 Claudero's cotemporary, Geordie Boick, in a poet- 

 ical welcome to London, thus compliments Wilson, 



and bewails the condition of the modern Athens 

 under its bereavement of the poet : 



" The ballad-singers and the printers. 

 Must surely now have starving winters ; 

 Their press they may break a' in splinters, 



I'm told they swear, 

 Claudero's Muse, alas ! we've tint her 



For ever mair." 



For want of Claudero's lash, his eulogist goes on 

 to say : 



" Now Vice may rear her hydra head. 

 And strike defenceless Virtue dead ; 

 Religion's heart may melt and bleed, 



With grief and sorrow, 

 Since Satire from your streets is fled. 



Poor Edenburrow !" 



Claudero was, notwithstanding, a sorry poet, a 

 lax moralist, and a sordid parson ; but peace to 

 the manes of the man, or his successor in the latter 

 office, who gave me in that same long room of the 

 White Horse in the Canongate of Edinburgh the 

 best parents son was ever blest with ! J. O. 



liADY KATHERINE GREY. 



(Vol.vi., p. 578.) 



There appears to be some doubt if the alleged 

 marriage ever did take place, for I find, In Baker's 

 Chronicles, p. 334., that in 1563 " divers great 

 persons were questioned and condemned, but had 

 their lives spared," and among them — 



" Lady Katherine Grey, daughter to Henry Grey 

 Duke of Suffolk, by the eldest daughter of Charles 

 Brandon, having formerly been married to the Earl of 

 Pembroke's eldest son, and from him soon after law- 

 fully divorced, was some years after found to be with 

 child by Edward Seymour Earl of Hartford, who, 

 being at that time in France, was presently sent for : 

 and being examined before the Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, and affirming they were lawfully married, but 

 not being able within a limited time to produce wit- 

 nesses of their marriage, they were both committed to 

 the Tower." 



After some further particulars of the birth of a 

 second child in the Tower, the discharge of the 

 Lieutenant, Sir Edward Warner, and the fining 

 of the Earl by the Star Chamber, to the extent of 

 5000Z., the narrative proceeds : 



" Though in pleading of his case, one John Hales 

 argued they were lawful man and wife hy virtue of their 

 own bare consent, without any ecclesiastical ceremony," 



Collins, In his Peerage (1735), states : 



" The validity of this marriage being afterwards tried 

 at Common Law, the minister who married them being 

 present, and other circumstances agreeing, the jury 

 (whereof John Digby, Esq., was foreman) found it a 

 marriage." 



