364 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[2'>'»S. VI. 149., Nov. 6.'58. 



proceedings in the Arches Court and the order 

 for their appearance before the House of Lords. 

 Newdigate Ousley and his sister acted for Lord 

 Rivers throughout the matter. 



We come now to the birth of the male child — 

 Richard Savage — if Savage's story be true. 

 The evidence shows that the birth took place in 

 Fox Court ; and that, unlike the previous child, 

 this was baptized and registei-ed in the name, not 

 of Savage, but Smith. Mrs. Pheasant deposes 

 that : — 



" She lodged at Mrs. Stileman's in the Old Bailey, and 

 ill 1096, about a fortnight after Michaelmas, the same 

 lady came again all alone in a hackas}' coach, and 

 calling to the Deponent, she went into the coach to her, 

 and she told the deponent, &c., and desired her to leave 

 her business; and that the Deponent must take a house, 

 and change her name from Pheasant to Lee, and should 

 hire a maid, and the lady was to be her lodger. That the 

 deponent did there hire one Sarah Redhead to be her 

 miiid, &c. That the deponent was to furnish the house, 

 which she did, and Mr. Woolsley [Ousley] paid the de- 

 ponent for them, &c. The lady went by the name of 

 Madam Smith, a captain's wife. That the lady came to 

 live with the deponent in Fox Couit, the 7th Nov. 1696, 

 and was with her till she removed into the citj'. That 

 about the 16th of January following the lady was de- 

 livered of a male child." 



Sarah Redhead, the maid, deposes that she 

 " often heard the gentlewoman wish the child to 

 be a boy, and was mightily pleased when she 

 heard it was a boy." 



Isaac Burbidge, the minister of St. Andrew's, 

 Holborn, states that on the 18th January, 169f, 

 he christened a child in Fox Court called Richard, 

 the son of John and Mary Smith, and that it was 

 so entered in the Register Book, and that the 

 house was " over against the Fox Ale house near 

 Gray's Inn Lane." * Being asked who were pre- 

 sent, he replied, " Two goilfathers and a gentle- 

 woman that was Godmother." From the evidence 

 of another witness it appears that these were 

 " the gentleman who used to come at nights [Lord 

 Rivers], and Mr. Woolsley and his sister." Other 

 witnesses speak positively in confirmation of this 

 point, Mrs. Pheasant declaring that : — 



" The child was christened Monday the 18th of 

 January, in the evening, and Mr. Woolsley, his sister and 

 a strange gentleman, whom the Deponent knew not," 

 were Godfathers and Godmother ; and the Minister and 

 Clerk, and the Deponent, with the said Godfather and 

 Godmother, were all that were present." 



No more persons of course were allowed to be 

 present than were absolutely necessary, there 



* The entry now standing in the book is " Richard, 

 son of John Smith and Mary, in Fox Court in Gray's Inn 

 Lane, baptized the 18th." The house stood at the 

 .southern corner of Fox Court in Gray's Inn Lane. The 

 other corner is, I think, still an alehouse, with the sign 

 of the Fox. The entrance to the court is now a narrow 

 gateway, but was probably open at the period referred to 

 in the text, the corner house, in which Richard Smith 

 was bom, being described as " going up steps." 



being now greater reason than ever for secrecy. 

 The complete disappearance of the Countess from 

 her sister Lady Brownlowe's house, at which she 

 had lived ever since her separation, had become 

 the talk of the town ; and the Earl, who had now 

 obtained intelligence of the birth of the first child, 

 was instituting a vigorous search for her hiding- 

 place. 



Richard Smith, like the preceding child, was 

 immediately placed at nurse ; and the evidence of 

 the nurse, " Mary Peglear," who lived at Hamp- 

 stead, enables us to trace it a little farther. This 

 witness deposed that in the preceding January she 

 was hired by Mrs. Pheasant to take a male child 

 from a house at the corner of Fox Court in Gray's 

 Inn Lane, and she adds : — 



" I was bid to ask for Mrs. Pheasant by the name of 

 Lee. The child came to me by the name of Richard Lee, 

 and was taken away by the name of Richard Smith. I 

 had the child six months, want a fortnight. Mrs. Phea- 

 sant paid me sometimes, and Mrs. Woolsey [Ousley] pai* 

 me but once." 



Mrs. Pheasant was the mother's agent, and 

 Mrs. Ousley the agent of the father. Lord Rivers. 

 Both parents were therefore continuing their care 

 of the second infant. It farther appears that, 

 like the first child, it was removed, on a report 

 that it was not well. Mrs. Peglear says : — 



" A Baker's wife took it away from me bj' the name of 

 the mother, and said she was the mother, and that she 

 rid post from Oxford, upon a letter that 'twas not well. 

 I think her name is Ann Portlock. She lives in Maiden 

 Lane, near Covent Garden, I think. I never saw the 

 child since." •• 



The attempt of Lord Macclesfield to trace the 

 child farther appears to have failed. Thomas Bees- 

 ley, another witness, being asked " If he went to 

 see one Portlock, a baker, whose wife fetched away 

 the child, pretending it was hers ? " replied, that 

 he did, " and saw the woman Portlock, who said 

 her husband was in Scotland. She lived in 

 Maiden Lane." 



With the Portlocks the child Richard Smith 

 finally disappears. Some particulars concerning 

 them may, therefore, help to throw light. The 

 woman Portlock not appearing either at the 

 Arches Court or before the Lords was probably 

 kept out of the way after Beesley saw her by 

 bribes from the Countess's friends, as had been 

 attempted with other witnesses. Though rate- 

 payers in the parish books for a house on the 

 north side of Maiden Lane from 1688 to 1697, the 

 Portlocks were evidently in bad circumstances. 

 Against the name of " Richard Portlock " in the 

 rate-book for 1697 is marked in pencil, " gone ;" 

 but the wife remained ; as I find her rated for the 

 same house in 1698 and 1699, as Mrs. Ann Port- 

 lock, not " Widow" Portlock, a common descrip- 

 tion in the books. Her husband was, therefore, 

 I presume, stiil living. Against her name in 

 1699 is written in the book " Po." [Poor ?] She 



