558 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 215. 



Jour Reverence will learn more in detail from the 

 etters of tlie said Prior. 



From our Palace at Richmond, 



Eighth day of January, 1523, 



Your good friend, 



Henry Rex. 

 No. II. 

 Henry by the grace of God, King of England and 

 France, Defender of the Faith, and Lord of 

 Ireland, to the Rev. Father in Christ, Philip 

 Villiers ^e L'Isle Adam, Grand Master of the 

 Order of Jerusalem. 



Our most dear friend — Greeting : 

 By other of our letters we have commended to 

 your Reverence our beloved Sir W. Weston, Tur- 

 coplerius, and the whole Order of Jerusalem in 

 our kingdom ; but since we honour the foresaid 

 Sir W. Weston with a peculiar affection, we have 

 judged him worthy that we should render him 

 more agreeable and more acceptable to your Re- 

 verence, by this our renewed recommendation ; 

 and we trust that you will have it the more easily 

 in your power to satisfy this our desire, because, 

 on account of the trust which you yourself placed 

 in him, you appointed him special envoy to our- 

 selves in behalf of the affairs of his Order, and 

 showed that you honoured him with equal good 

 will. We therefore most earnestly entreat your 

 Reverence not to be backward in receiving him on 

 his return with all possible offices of love, and to 

 serve him especially in those matters which regard 

 his office of Turcoplerius, and his Mastership. 

 Moreover, if any honours in the gift and disposal 

 of your Reverence fall due to you, with firm con- 

 fidence we beg of you to vouchsafe to appoint and 

 promote the Ibresaid Sir William Weston to the 

 same, which favour will be so pleasing and ac- 

 ceptable to us, that when occasion offers we will 

 endeavour to return it not only to your Reverence, 

 but also to your whole Order. And may every 

 happiness attend you. 



From oui- Palace at Windsor, 



First day of August, 1524, 



Your good friend, 



Henry Rex. 

 No. HI. 

 Henry by the grace of God, King of England and 

 France, DefondiT of the Faith, and Lord of 

 Ireland, to the Rev. Father in Christ, Philip 

 Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Grand Master of the 

 Order of Jerusalem. 



Our most dear friend — Greeting : 

 Ambrosius Layton, our subject, and brother of 

 the same Order, has delivered to us your Re- 

 verence's letter, and from it we very well under- 

 stand the matters concerning the said Order, 

 •which your Reverence had committed to his 

 charge to be delivered to us ; but we have delayed 

 to return an answer, and we still delay, because 



we have understood that a general Chapter of 

 your whole Order will be held in a short time, to 

 which we doubt not that the more prudent and 

 experienced of the brethren of the Order will 

 come, and we trust that, by the general wish and 

 counsel of all of you, a place may be selected for 

 this illustrious Order which may be best suited 

 for the imperial support and advancement of the 

 Republic, and for the assailing of the infidels. 

 AVhen therefore your Reverence shall have made 

 us acquainted with the place selected for the said 

 Chapter, you shall find us no less prompt and 

 ready than any other Christian prince in all things 

 which can serve to the advantage and support of 

 the said Order. 



From our Palace at Richmond, 



Fourth day (month omitted), 1526, 



Your good friend, 



Henry Rbx. 



That the subject of the above letters may be 

 better understood, it may be necessary to state 

 that L'Isle Adam was driven out of Rhodes by the 

 Sultan Solyman, after a most desperate and san- 

 guinary struggle, which continued aluiost without 

 intermission from the 26ih of June to the 18th of 

 December, 1523. From this date to the month of 

 October, 1530, nearly seven years, the Order of 

 St. John of Jerusalem had no fixed residence, and 

 the Grand Master was a wanderer in Italy, either 

 in Rome, Viterbo, Na|)les, or Syracuse, while 

 begging of the Christian Powers to assist him in 

 recovering Rhodes, or Charles V. to give him 

 Malta as a residence for his convent. It was 

 during this period that the above letters, and 

 some others which I purpose sending hereafter, 

 were written. William Winthrop. 



PENNY SIGHTS AND EXHIBITIONS IN THE REIGN 

 OF JAMES I. 



The following curious list may amuse some 

 of your readers. I met with it among the host 

 of panegyrical verses prefixed to Master Tom 

 Coryate's Crudities, published in 1611. Even in 

 those days it will be admitted that the English 

 were rather fond of such things, and glorious 

 Will himself bears testimony to the fact. (See 

 Tempest, Act II. Sc. 2.) The hexameter verses 

 are anonymous ; perhaps one of your well-read 

 antiquaries may be ahle to assign to them the 

 author, and be disposed to annotate them. I 

 would particularly ask when was Drake's ship 

 broken up, and is there any date on the chair* 

 made from the wood, which is now to be seen at 

 the Bodleian Library, Oxford? 

 " Wiiy doe the rude vulgar so hastily post in a mad- 

 nesse 

 To sraze at trifles, and toyes not worthy the viewing? 



[* The date to Cowley's lines on the chair is 1662.] 



