oo 
4 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 1. 
of hunger, a watch, a purse of gold, a small treatise 
on fortification, an album filled with songs, re- 
ceipts, prayers, and charms, and the George with 
which, many years before, King Charles the Second 
had decorated his favourite son.” — Hist. Eng. i. 
pp. 616—618. 2nd edition. 
Now, this is all extremely admirable. It 
is a brilliant description of an important his- 
torical incident. But on what precise spot did 
it take place? One would like to endeavour 
to realise such an event at the very place 
where it occurred, and the historian should 
enable us to do so. I believe the spot is very 
well known, and that the traditions of the neigh- 
bourhood upon the subject are still vivid. It 
was near Woodyate’s Inn, a well-known road- 
side inn, a few miles from Salisbury, on the road 
to Blandford, that the Duke and his compa- 
nions turned adrift their horses. From thence 
they crossed the country in almost a due 
southerly direction. The tract of land in 
which the Duke took refuge is rightly de- 
scribed by Mr. Macaulay, as “separated by an 
inclosure from the open country.” Its nature 
is no less clearly indicated by its local name 
of “The Island.” The open down which sur- 
rounds it is called Shag’s Heath. The Island 
is described as being about a mile and a half 
from Woodlands, and in the parish of Horton, 
in Dorsetshire. The field in which the Duke 
concealed himself is still called “‘ Monmouth 
Close.” It is at the north-eastern extremity of 
the Island. An ash-tree, at the foot of which 
the would-be-king was found crouching in a 
ditch and half hid under the fern, was standing | 
a few years ago, and was deeply indented with 
the carved initials of crowds of persons who | 
had been to visit it. Mr. Macaulay has men- 
tioned that the fields were covered — it was 
the eighth of July— with standing crops of 
rye, pease, and oats. In one of them, a field of | 
pease, tradition tells us that the Duke dropped 
a gold snuff-box. It was picked up some time 
afterwards by a labourer, who carried it to 
fifteen pounds, which was said to be half its 
value. On his capture, the Duke was first 
taken to the house of Anthony Etterick, Esq., 
a magistrate who resided at Holt, which adjoins 
Horton. Tradition, which records the popular 
she had seen two strangers lurking in the ° 
Island—her name was Amy Farrant—never 
prospered afterwards; and that Henry Parkin, 
the soldier, who, spying the skirt of the smock- 
frock which the Duke had assumed as a dis- 
guise, recalled the searching party just as 
they were leaving the Island, burst into tears 
and reproached himself bitterly for his fatal 
discovery. 
It is a defect in the Ordnance Survey, that 
neither the Island nor Monmouth Close is 
indicated upon it by name. 
I know not, Mr. Editor, whether these par- 
ticulars are of the kind which you design to 
print as “ Notes.” If they are so, and you 
give them place in your miscellany, be good | 
enough to add a ‘* Query” addressed to your 
Dorsetshire correspondents, as to whether the 
ash-tree is now standing, and what is the 
actual condition of the spot at the present time. 
The facts I have stated are partly derived 
from the book known as Addison’s Anecdotes, 
vol. iv. p. 12. 1794, 8vo. Thsy have been 
used, more or less, by the late Rev. P. Hall, 
in his Account of Ringwood, and by Mr. 
Roberts, in his Life of Monmouth. 
With the best of good wishes for the suc- 
cess of your most useful periodical, 
Believe me, Mr. Editor, 
Yours very truly, 
JouN BRUCE. 
SHAKESPEARE AND DEER-STEALING,. 
In “The Life of Shakespeare,” prefixed to 
the edition of his Works I saw through the 
press three or four years ago, I necessarily 
entered into the deer-stealing question, ad- 
_mitting that I could not, as some had done, 
“entirely discredit the story,” and following 
it up by proof (in opposition to the assertion 
| of Malone), that Sir Thomas Lucy had deer, 
_which Shakespeare might have been con- 
_ cerned in stealing. 
Mrs. Uvedale of Horton, probably the pro- | 
prietor of the field, and received in reward | 
T also, in the same place 
(vol. i. p.xev.), showed, from several autho- 
rities, how common and how venial offence 
it was considered in the middle of the reign 
of Elizabeth. Looking over some MSS. of 
that time, a few weeks since, I met with a 
_very singular and confirmatory piece of evi- 
: _ dence, establishing that in the year 1585, the 
feeling rather than the fact, reports, that the | 
poor woman who informed the pursuers that | 
| 
precise period when our great dramatist is 
supposed to have made free with the deer of 
