Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/265

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12 S. VIII. MARCH 12, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 215 ANECDOTE OF LAURENCE STERNE (12 S. viii. 129). The paragraph quoted by ST.

S WITHIN from The Yorkshire Post of October,

1765, is of real interest as anticipating the use which Sterne made of the same com- parison in the ' Sentimental Journey,' first published in February, 1768. Yorick, after remarking to the Count de B[issie] that the French are polite to an excess, explains his meaning thus : " I had a fevd king William's shillings as smooth as glass in ray pocket ; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand, when I had proceeded so far : See, Mons. le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before him upon the table, by jingling and rubbing one against another for seventy years together in one body's pocket or another's, they are become so much alike, you can

scarce distinguish one shilling from another "

(' A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy,' vol. ii., ' Character., Versailles '). He then likens the English to " antient medals, kept more apart." In the early part of October, 1765, Sterne started on his last Continental journey. Possibly tjie lines in Th? Yorkshire Post were apropos of this. EDWARD BENSLY. RICHARD III. (12 S. viii. 169). I assume MEDINEWS knows of the reference, with note

at foot, to the traditional Richard Plan-

tagenet's son of above, in Hasted' s 'History of Kent under Eastwell,'vol. iii. (folio edn.j, p. 202. PERCY HULBURD. 124 Inverness Terrace, W. W. E. Flaherty in '.Annals of England' '(1857), vol. ii. p. 99, writes : " Bichard had a natural daughter, Katherine, ~who married William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon, ~but is believed to have died shortly after. Two matural sons are also ascribed to him, and a tale ihas been told of one of them living in Kent to the time of Edward VI. (1550), and following for safety the craft of a bricklayer, but its truth is very doubtful." According to the ' D.N.B.' (xxvi. 220), the Earl of Huntingdon on Feb. 29, 1484 {Le., Sunday, Feb. 29, 1483-4), " covenanted to marry Princess Catharine, daughter of Richard III. ; but the princess died Ibefore the time appointed for the marriage." Arthur Collins in his 'Peerage' (1735), ii. 498, speaking of this Earl of Huntingdon, Ihas this passage : " Which William, 15 Nov. 1, R. III., was con- stituted Justice of South Wales ; and on the last of February next following, entered into Covenant with that King to take Dame Catharine Plan- ,tagenet, his Daughter, to Wife, before the Feast ( of St. Michael, then next following. . . .But this Lady dying in her tender Years, 'tis likely that v this Marriage did not take effect." Murray's ' Kent ' (1892), at p. 212, says : " From Bough ton the lower road should be taken to Eastwell Church, in which is buried the ' last of the Plantagenets.' Richard, a natural son of Richard III., is said to have fled here immediately after the battle of Bosworth, and to have supported himSelf as a mason, until dis- covered by Sir Thomas Moyle, who allowed him to build a small house adjoining Eastwell Place, in which he lived and died (1550). The parish register of burials contains the following entry, copied, of course, from an earlier book : ' V. Rychard Plantagenet, Desember 22nd, 1550,' the letter V. marking persons of noble birth throughout the register. A tomb in the chancel, without inscription and deprived of its brasses is said to belong to this offset of the White Rose (but the Earl of Winchilsea told Dr. Brett in 1720 that it was unknown whether he was buried in the ch. or chyard. See Dr. Brett's letter in Pock's ' Desiderata Curiosa')- The house in which Plantagenent lived was destroyed toward the end of the 17th century ; a modern building marks the site. Near it is a spring still called ' Plan- tagenet's Well.' " According to Lewis's ' Topographical Dic- tionary ' Richard Plantagenet was 81 when he died. In 1469 the future Richard III. was aged 19. JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT. COUNTESS MACNAMABA (12 S. viii. 49, 114). MB. DE TEBNANT has kindly written to inform me that the lady referred to in his reply at the second reference was born at Perth and that the date of the creation of her title by the King of Naples was probably between 1815 and 1820. Any further par- ticulars about her would be gratefullv received. In giving Countess Macnamara's account of Mrs. Atkyns's visit to Queen Marie- Antoinette in the Conciergerie, M. Frederic Bareby, in ' Madame Atkyns ' (Paris, 1905), at p. 86, says in a note : " Le temoignage de la comtesse Mac-Namara a ete rapporte par Le Norman t des Varannes, ' Histoire de Louis XVII.,' Orleans, 1890, in 8", pp. 10-14, qui le tenaiti du vicomte d'Orcet, lequel avait connu la comtesse." Perhaps some one, who has access to M. Le Xormant des Varannes' s work, will say whether it throws any light on the Countess. MB. DE TEBNANT also put me under an obligation by referring me to ' The Pedigree of John Macnamara, Esquire,' privately printed in 1908, a copy of which is in the British Museum. This book does not men- tion the Countess in question, but makes it quite clear that I was wrong in conjecturing at 10 S. xi. 457 that she was the wife of the gentleman who was created Comte by Louis XVI. in 1782. The author, Mr. R. W. Twigge, _ F.S.A., at p. 47 writes, that