Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/349

This page needs to be proofread.

. in. APRIL 15, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


285


for the spelling with $ ? At any rate, it is time to give it up in modern editions, both for the sake of uniformity and to avoid the puzzling suggestion of the Mohammedan religion. L. R. M. STRACHAN.

Heidelberg, Germany.

[MR. LAXGTOK, at 10 th S. ii. 446, referred to Boswell's note on the letter h, but did not mention the mistake pointed out above.]

CHARLES V. IN ENGLAND. In the corre- spondence of the Swiss reformer Vadianus, published during recent years by the St. Gallen Historical Society, there is a letter bearing date 19 June, 1520, the writer of which transmits to his correspondent some particulars of an interview between Charles V. and Henry VIII., which may be interesting to the readers of '1ST. & Q.' The portion of the letter referring to this matter reads as follows :

" Ulterius Dominacioni Vestrse prseterire nolo ut indubie nunc etiam fama apud nos volat quod SacratissimaCaesarea et Catholica Maiestas vicesima sexta mensis Mail prseteritt in Angliam in quodam portu Santwickh vpcatus cum omni sua comitiva aplicuit, ubi a serenissimo rege Anglire et uxore sua, etiam omnibus proceribus et prof uncialibus (? pro- vincialibus) et incolis terra Anglire honorificentis- sime exceptus fuit et triduo cum sua Maiestate Anglica in civitate Cantuariensi niorata fuit, ubi magnre solempnitates, Iretitise, gaudia et festa cele- brata inter eos fuere. Et tandem iterum sua Maiestas Catholica cum sua comitiva vicesima nona mensis pneteriti ex Anglia discessit et prima Junii huius cum omnibus suis classibus quse in niagna copia fuerunt, salvis omnibus, ad proprias here- ditarias profincias in Selanndria in quodam portu et civitate nominata Flussingen traiecit et aplicuit et per proximum cum omnibus suiscpmitivis versus Gandaganem ad comitatum Flandriam se recepit, ubi a fratre suo et domina serenissima Margaretha et a proceribus et nobilibus et incolis profinciarum inferiarum, qui eo in loco suam Maiestatem ex- pectarunt, sine dubio cum magnis triumphis et nonoribus, ut mos eorum est, exceptus etiam fuit. De quibus omnibus certissimas literas et postas a sua Maiestate accepi, et vera et non ficta sunt, quse firmiter credere debetis. Et commendo me Dominacioni Vestrre. Ex Turego, xix mensis Junii, anno xx.

" JOHANNES ACER, Secretarius Cresareus."

This meeting between Charles V. (who had shortly before been raised to the imperial throne of the Holy Roman Empire, i.e., Germany, Italy, Austria, in addition to his hereditary states of Spain and the Nether- lands, and who was now 'on his way, vid Ghent, to be crowned in due form at Aix-la- Chapelle) and Henry VIII. (who, accompanied by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, wel- comed the most powerful monarch of those times on English soil, at Sandwich, and entertained him for three days at Canter- bury) is surely most interesting. King


and emperor, with their respective retinues, remained together from 26 till 29 May (1520), when Charles V. sailed for Flanders. Among the jjroceres forming the comitiva on either side were the two most prominent statesmen of Europe : Cardinal Wolsey, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Cardinal Ximenes, Prime Minister of the Spanish King and German Emperor. The share taken by Queen Catherine in the festivities in honour of her countrymen would form a luminous interval in the accumulating gloom of her life at a period when the mind of her royal spouse was turning to the assiduous study of ecclesiastical law with a view to freeing him- self from unloved bonds. The circumstance that it took his imperial majesty three days, from 29 May to 1 June, to make the passage from England was it from Sheerness? to Flushing, is not without interest, especially if we contrast it with the few hours now required for passing from Queen borough to Flushing. CHARLES A. FEDERER.

Bradford.

BIGG, THE DINTON HERMIT. (See 10 th S. ii. 526.) The interesting particulars given by the REV. JOHN PICKFORD concerning the Dinton hermit at the above reference prompt me to say that a portrait of this remarkable man and a representation of one of his shoes appeared in vol. iv. No. 3 (1872) of the Records of Buckinghamshire. They accompanied a paper on 'Dinton Hall and Church,' by the Rev. C. Lowndes, M.A., F.R.A.S., from which I venture to extract the following notes :

"The Dinton Album (at Dinton Hall) contains a statistical account of Dinton from the MSS. of Browne Willis and other sources, with paintings of many objects of natural history and other memo- rabilia. It was commenced in the year 1772 by Sir John Vanhattem, and the paintings were done for him by Mr. Britten, an architect ; those in the time of the Rev. William Goodall were painted by him- self.

"In it is an account of a celebrated character, John Bigg, the hermit, and also of his shoe; of which the following is a transcript :

'"Out of a letter wrote to me by Mr. Tho: Hearne, Keeper of the Anatomy School, and Sub-librarian of the Bodleian Library. Dated Feb. 12, 1712-13, Oxon.

"'Mr. Prince told me you wanted some ace* of the Buckinghamshire shoe in our Bodleian Re- pository. You have seen it more than once and heard the ace* of it. However, for better satis- faction, I shall repeat the story, viz., that the shoe is vastly large, made up of about a thousand patches of leather. It belong'd to John Bigg, who- was clerk to Simon Mayne, of^ Dinton, one of the Judges that gave sentence on K. Charles first. He liv'd at Dinton, in a cave underground, had been a man of tolerable wealth, was look'd upon as a. pretty good scholar, and of no contemptible parts.