170 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 70. 



BOOXr S CASE. 



(Vol. iii., p. 40.) 



I cannot refer Demonologtst to .an authentic 

 report of Booty's case, but I believe none is more 

 so th.an th.at in Kirby's Wonderful and Eccentric 

 Museum, vol. ii. p. 247. 



The following extract is given from tbe journal 

 of Mr. Spinks : — 



" Friday, loih IMay, 1687. AVe had the observation 

 of Mr. Booty this day. Captain Barrisl)y, Captain Biis- 

 towe, Captain Brown, I, and Mr. Ball, merchant, vent 

 on shore in Capt;iin Barnaby's boat, to shoot rabbits 

 upon Stroraboli ; and when we had done we called all 

 our men together by us, and about half an hour and 

 fourteen minutes after three in the afternoon, to our 

 great surprise, we all of us saw two men come running 

 towards us with such swiftness that no living man 

 could run half so fast as they did run, when all of us 

 heard Captain Barnaby say, ' Loid bless me, the fore- 

 most is old Booty, my next-door neighbour ; ' but he 

 said he did not know tlie other that run behind : he 

 was in black clothes, and the foremost was in grey. 

 Then Captain Barnaby desired all of us to take an 

 account of the time, and put it down in our pocket- 

 books, and when we got on board we wrote it in our 



Cardinal Beaufort, Bistop of Winchester, and who 

 in that capacity resided in the adjoining palace ; 

 indirectly it refers to the marriage of James V. of 

 Scotland with Jane Beaufort, the Cardinal's niece: 

 and it is something to the honour of St. Mary 

 Overies, (the church in question,) to add that it 

 was within its walls that the ceremony took place. 

 Besides Gower, the parish registers state that 

 Edmond Shakspeare ob. 1G07 (one of the bio- 

 thers of the threat dramatist), John Fletcher ob. 

 1625, and PhUip Massinger ob. 1640. (See Mr. 

 Knight's Old England, eng. 548. p. 147.) 



Blowen. 



A cardinal's hat is differenced by colour and the 

 number of its tassels, rot by its shape, which is 

 the same for all clergymen. Thus, for simple 

 priests, a black hat, with one tassel on either side ; 

 for a bishop, a green hat with three tassels ; for a 

 cardinal, a crimson hat with five or seven tassels. 

 What the reason may be for the variation in the 

 number of the tassels amongst cardinals, I should 

 be glad to learn. W. D-n. 



In Ciaconius {Vitce et Res Gestw Pontijicum, 

 Rome, 1630), there is a list of all the cardinals 

 created up to that date, with their armorial bear- 

 ings ; and the only instances of France and Eng- 

 land quarterly (which is, no doubt, what is in- 

 tended), are those of Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop 

 of Winchester, and Cardinal Hallum, Bishop of 

 Salisbury. I can find no mention anyuherc of , 

 the fitmily of Cardinal Ilallum, or Hallam ; and 

 should be glad to know who he was descended 

 from, and why he had those arms assigned to hiiu 

 by Ciaconius, who is tolerably correct. A.W. M. | 



journals ; for we saw them into the flames of fire, and 

 there was a great noise which greatly affrighted us 

 all ; for we none of us ever saw or heard the like 

 before. Captain Barnaby said he was certain it was 

 old Booty, which he saw running over Stromboli and 

 into the flames of Hell. It is stated that Captain 

 Barnaby told his wife, and she told somebody else, and 

 that it was afterward told to Mrs. Booty, who arrested 

 Captain Barnaby in a thousand pound action, for what 

 he had said of her husband. Captain Barnaby gave 

 bail to it, and it came on to a trial in die Court of 

 King's Bench, and they had Mr. Booty's wearing 

 apparel brought into court, and the sexton of the 

 parish, and the people that were with him when he 

 died ; and we swore to our journals, and it came to 

 the same time within two minutes : ten of our men 

 swore to the buttons on his coat, and that they were 

 covered with the same sort of cloth his coat was made 

 of, and so it proved. The jury asked Mr. Spinks if he 

 knew Mr. Booty. He answered, ' I never saw him 

 till he ran by me on tlie burning mountain.'" 



The chief justice from April, 1687, to February, 

 1689, was Sir Robert Wright. Ilis name is not 

 given in the report, but the judge said — 



" Lord have mercy upon me, and grant that I may 

 never see what you have seen : one, two, or three may 

 be mistaken, but thirty never can be mistaken. So the 

 widow lost her suit." 



An action for slander of a deceased husband, 

 brought by the widow, and the defendant held to 

 bail, is a remarkable beginning. The plea of jus- 

 tifictition, that Booty ran into Hell, is hardly sup- 

 ported by evidence that he ran into the flames at 

 Stromboli. The evidence was, that the defendant 

 said that one of the two runners was Booty ; it 

 does not appear that the other witnesses knew 

 him. The witnesses must have kept a good look 

 to observe the buttons of Booty's coat when he 

 ran more than twice as fast as any living man 

 could run. Finally, as the time of the death and 

 the observation " came to the same within two 

 minutes,", and Stromboli is about 15° east of 

 Gravesend, Booty must have run to Hell before 

 he died. 



I have no doubt that " the case is well known 

 in the navy." The facts are of the sort usually 

 reported to the marines ; but the law such as was 

 unknown before 9 & 10 Vict. c. 95. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club, Feb. 11. 



THE CONQUEST. 



(Vol. ii., p. 440. ; Vol. iii., p. 92.) 

 I question the position of S. K., that the phrase 

 " post conquestum " is used in the deed he cites 

 (Vol. ii., p. 92.) for the accession of the king. 

 " Post conquestum" was, in records and deeds, 

 applied with more or less frequency to all our 

 kings, from Edward III. to Henry VIII. To show 

 this^Igive the following references to the pages of 

 Madox's Formulare Anglicanujn : — 



