came, asking for some particulars of the painting. He replied that the owner, whom he named, had loaned it to his Museum, having purchased it in Plymouth about two years before from a Bath dealer.

This painting, as photographed, shows at the south wall of the Banqueting Hall, the same elaborate details already briefly described as seen in the engraving, viz. : the greatly enlarged window, the large bridge passing through the window at its upper part, and the annexe at the south wall, close beside the window. Apart, however, from this painting and engraving, no such arrangements are shown in connexion with the south wall of the House in any of the numerous illustrations of the building I have met with. Two writers of the seventeenth century, and only two, so far as I am aware, have described the King as having been brought out of the Hall to his execution through the great window." One of these was Sir William Sanderson (b. circa 1586, d. 1676), and the other, Lambert Wood, alias Lambert van den Bos, a Dutchman (b. 1610, d. 1698).

Sanderson, in his History of the Life and Raigne of King Charles from His Cradle to his Grave,' says of the King's passing to the scaffold: "From thence he was conveyed into the Banquetting House, and the great Window enlarged, out of which he ascends the scaffold, the Rails hung round, and the Floor covered with Black." Lambert Wood's work, entitled The Life and Raigne of King Charles from his Birth to his Death,' states of the King, neere one of the clock he was convey'd through the Banqueting-house, and past through the great window upon the scaffold covered with black." This edition of Lambert Wood's History, and Sir William Sanderson's History, were published in 1658, in London, but two earlier editions of Wood's work were printed, one in Amsterdam, dated 1652, and the other in London, in 1657. In neither of these earlier editions of Wood's History is there any mention of the King's passage to the scaffold.

The only window in the Hall that could, with accuracy, be referred to by these writers as 'the great window,' was the window known as such from the time of the construction of the building, being the great south window, which has always been much larger than any of the windows in the House. It

is possible that the painting already mentioned, and the engraving dedicated to Queen Anne, were executed to illustrate this concep

tion, recorded by Sir William Sanderson and Lambert Wood, of the King's passing from the Hall having been through the great window.

This strange idea, however, that the King was brought out through a window more than forty feet above ground level, and then taken down to the ground, and round, as we may suppose was suggested, to the west front of the building, and so upon the scaffold, was altogether too imaginative and unreal to have become prevalent in England, and this it never did.

The suggestion has, however, been made that "the great window," to which Sir William Sanderson refers, was one of the seven windows on the Hall floor along the western front. But inasmuch as Sanderson must

the

have known that there cannot be two windows at the same time in a Hall, each called “ great window," this conjecture that he was describing one of the seven windows on the that he had no knowledge of the existing the great window," would imply great window" at the south end.

west as

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Sir William Sanderson was about 90 years old at his death in 1676, and was therefore more than 60 at the time of the King's execution, and it is very unlikely that he would not have known of this great south window of the Hall at the time his History was published.

The window was a prominent object in the south wall, easily seen from the street, and from a distance. It is now no longer visible from outside, nor does it open into the air, but is enclosed in the building of the United Service Institution, in the roof of which a

glass dome admits light to the window.

Quite apart, however, from there having been already a great window in the Banqueting Hall at the time of the King's execution, by no manner of reasoning could a window of the middle row on the west front be called

the great window" of the Hall, as all the seven windows in this row are identical in size, being also of the same size as the seven windows opposite them on the river side of the building.

How, then, are we to explain the statements of Sir William Sanderson and Lambert Wood? The only possible explanation is that they are errors, founded perhaps on inaccurate reports, which may have been conveyed to them after the King's death. Sanderson was a Royalist and is described as having suffered in consequence; he says of himself that he had been " beyond Seas,' " without mentioning the date. He may have been an

exile at the time of the King's execution, and written then some of his History and published it later without verifying the details. Be that as it may, his statement and that of Lambert Wood alias van den Bos, concerning the King's passing to his death through the great window" of the Banqueting Hall were certainly not correct. It was doubtless one of Sanderson's frequent inaccuracies to which Sir Charles Firth refers.

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No contemporary writer who had a correct knowledge of the architecture of the Banqueting House, or of details connected with the King's death, could with accuracy state that the King came out at "the great window." Writing of Sir William Sanderson's History of the Life and Raigne of King Charles,' in which this reference to the great window" occurs, Sir Charles Firth says: This is a compilation quoting freely from newspapers, speeches, manifestoes and the Eikon Basilike'; it is frequently inaccurate, and of little original value." Anthony à Wood (1622-1695), contemporary with William Sanderson, referring in his 'Athenae Oxonienses,' to Sanderson's three Histories, one of Mary Queen of Scots, another of James I, and the third, the History of King Charles I, above-mentioned, says :- they are not much valued, because they are mostly taken from printed authors, and lying pamphlets."

BUR

CHARLES HERBERT THOMPSON.

(To be continued).

Sir

URIAL OF CHARLES I (cliii. 460).--I do not know the quarto pamphlets mentioned by DR. Cock, nor have I found any contemporary mention of a plumber or a leaden coffin. But the Moderate intelligencer says the King's body was placed in a coffin "of no great value," and Aubrey adds that it cost 6s. This remained in the Banqueting House until Thursday, Feb. 1, on which day the body was embalmed, and, as Perfect Occurrences adds, the head sowed on," and was then removed to St. James's. From St. James's the body was removed in the night of the 7th by the King's four servants, under a warrant dated the 6th. They were to take it to Windsor and bury it there. By their orders a grave was dug near the tomb of Edward IV. But, on the 8th, the Duke of Richmond obtained an order from the Rump (see Commons' Journals) permitting himself three other peers, and Dr. Juxon, to attend the funeral. The Duke was to bury the body where he pleased. When he arrived at Windsor, therefore, he countermanded the grave,

and selected the vault of Henry VIII; and I assume from this that the leaden coffin enclosing the wooden one was then made, for it was by the Duke's orders that a strip of lead, two feet long by two inches wide, bearing the legend King Charles, 1648," was "sawdred to the brest of the corpse " ("Lambert Wood.").

The funeral took place in the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 9, without prayer or service of any kind.

Herbert's and Clarendon's accounts are, to say the least of them, quite untrustworthy. J. G. MUDDIMAN.

BEADLES IN LONDON SQUARES (cliii. sight of beadles in the squares in 461).-Quite fresh in my memory is the Thackery's country "-round about the British Museum-in the 'sixties of last century. Many a time, as a child, have I met them, and spoken to them, as they were prowling about Bloomsbury, Russell, Bedford, etc., Squares and in Lincoln's Inn Fields, uniformed in their green coats, gilt-banded top hats and canes. Nurses taking their young charges out for their morning walk were often heard to say, Here comes the beadle, " with the result that the children were at once brought to order and discipline -for the moment! Whether each square had its own beadle I cannot say-probably not.

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Residents in the square were the privileged holders of keys of the gates leading into the enclosure. V. C.

BANKING ITEMS (cliii. 370, 447).—MR. NEWTON is correct in both respects. I had overlooked the scroll at the side of the Westminster Bank cheques, which in its design rather fails in making the portcullis with its roses as distinctive as in the cases of the scrolls of Prescott Dimsdale and Co.'s and other old Banks. The portcullis should, of course, have been mentioned by me as the City crest," and not arms. The latter by the grant of Oct. 1, 1601, were:- In a shield azure a Portcullis or, on a cheif of the seconde the Armes of the Holy King Edward the Confessor betweene the twoe vnited Roses of Lancaster and Yorke." The

grant of arms to the Burgess Court was following those of the Deanery, Edward the Confessor's arms being replaced by the portcullis, and the former shifted up to replace those of France and England quarterly on the Deanery arms. The portcullis was the emblem of the Tudor Royal House, and its use by the Beaufort family is due to its descent from an illegitimate son of the Duke of Somerset. It also appears, I am told, in the arms of the Romsey and Arbroath families, but in these cases I have not traced its origin. When the Earl of Grosvenor was created a Marquis in 1831 and adopted the title of Westminster, the Burgess Court invited him, as the first one to bear the title, to quarter the City arms with his own, a flattering request which was duly accepted.

The coinage issued by the East India Company was called portcullis money. Can any reader supply the reason for this? By way of addenda to MR. NEWTON'S interesting note about Atkinson's building in Bond Street, he may like to know that the Midland Bank intends to decorate the Board Room of its Head Office with tapestries emblazoned with the arms of the principal cities in which it transacts business, Westminster being selected as one.

I would like to add that for some years I have been collecting cheques of banks past and present, and among them I have one curio, where the drawer signs "Yours respectfully.” Should any reader have any old cheques, more especially of defunct firms, I should be very glad of specimens and, if desired, to send duplicates in exchange. Their collection makes an interesting supplement to Hilton Price's Handbook of London Bankers.'

W. H. MANCHÉE.

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY: "EXCISE" (cliii. 442). The Attorney-General's opinion on the point raised by the Commissioners of Excise is to be read in more than one annotated edition of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.' Boswell himself mentions under the year 1755, that the Commissioners consulted Mr. Murray, then Attorney-General (the future Lord Mansfield), and gives the import of his opinion, but was unable to obtain a copy of it. In his own words, The mysterious secrecy of office, it seems, would not permit it." Croker was more fortunate, and was able " through the favour of Sir F. Doyle, deputy-chairman of the Excise Board, to present the reader with the case submitted to Lord Mansfield and his opinion."

Case for the opinion of Mr. Attorney-General. Mr. Samuel Johnson has lately published A Dictionary of the English Language, in which ful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged are the following words:- EXCISE n.s. A hatenot by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.'

The author's definition being observed by the Commissioners of Excise, they desire the favour of your opinion.

Qu. Whether it will not be considered as a libel, and if so, whether it is not proper to proceed against the author, printers and publishers thereof, or any and which of them, by information, or how otherwise?'

all the circumstances, I should think it better I am of opinion that it is a libel. But under to give him an opportunity of altering his definition; and, in case he do not, to threaten him with an information. W. Murray.

29th Nov., 1775.

Olomouc, Czechoslovakia.

WARREN LISLE

OTTO F. BABLER.

(cliii. 443). There iduals of this name, father and son. would appear to have been two indivThe first was appointed by Patent dated 14 Mar., 1715/6, Patent Searcher of the Port of Poole in succession to George Lisle (presumably his father, as the office was of an hereditary character). The Patent was confirmed by another issued on 31 Oct., 1727. Warren Lisle (junior) held the office of surveyor of sloops and boats to the Board of Customs along the Dorset and Deonshire coasts, and was commander of three revenue cutters, viz., the Walker sloop or "yacht" in 1730, the Beehive in 1738, and the Cholmondeley sloop in 1741,