By F. A. Carrington, Esq. 31 



by Mr. Noake, in his " Notes and Queries for Worcestershire,"' 

 that "in 1614, Margaret wife of John Bache, of Chaddesley, was 

 prosecuted at the sessions as a 'comon skould, and a sower of 

 strife amongste her neyghboures, and hath bynn presented for a 

 skoulde at the leete houlden for the manour of Chadsley, and for 

 inisbehavying her tonge towards her mother-in-law at a visytacon 

 at Brorasgrove, and was excommunicated therefore.' " 



"In 1617, Elinor Nichols was presented as 'a great scold and 

 and mischief-maker,' who is said to have been excommunicated, 

 and had never applied to make her peace with the Church." 



Mr. Brand in his " History of Newcastle-upon-Tyne," says, — 

 "In the time of the Commonwealth, it appears that the magistrates 

 of Newcastle-upon-Tyne punished scolds with the branks, and 

 drunkards by making them carry a tub, called the Drunkard's 

 Cloak, through the streets of that town. We shall presume that 

 there is no longer any occasion for the former ; but why has the 

 latter been laid aside ? "^ 



"A pair of branks are still preserved in the Town-court of 

 Newcastle. See an account of them, with a plate, in Plot's 

 ' Staffordshire.' Vide Gardiner's ' English Grievance of the Coal- 

 trade.' The representation in this work is a fac-simile from his."^ 



Gardiner's book was published in 1655,* and commences with an 

 Epistle dedicatory to " His Highness Oliver, Lord Protector of the 

 Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, &c.," in whicli 



*P. 106. This is an admirable little work. It contains much information, 

 in a cheap and popular form, and is in effect 326 pages of addenda to " Brand's 

 Popular Antiquities." 



- For representations of both, see the plate of "Miscellaneous Antiquities," 

 No. 2 and 3, "Brand's History of Newcastle," vol. ii., p. 47. 



' " History of Newcastle," vol. ii., p. 192. The representation is not very 

 accurate as regards the dress. 



* In Mr. Hargrave's copy of this work, now in the British Museum, is the 

 following note, written by that learned gentleman : — " 19th May, 1783. This 

 book is extremely scarce. This copy of it, though without the map mentioned 

 in the title, was sold at the sale of Mr. Gulston's books for one guinea, to Mr, 

 King, bookseller in Lower Moor Fields. I bought it of Mr. King, and paid him 

 one guinea and a half for it. — F. Hargrave." 



