Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/210

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [IIS.XIE. SEPT. 11,1915.


I have never attempted to dispose of the Globe Alley on the south side of Maiden Lane ; all I have said is that it was not the original Globe Alley which led to the Playhouse. DR. MARTIN says that

" an entirely independent proof that the Globe Alley of the Close Roll of 1626 was situated within the limits of the estate now held by Barclay, Perkins & Co., which is wholly to the south of Maid Lane, is furnished by a deed by which the brewery estate was conveyed to Barclay & Perkins in 1787."

This document, which was prepared nearly 150 years after the theatre was pulled down, cannot be accepted as good evidence as against the documents and views which were made at the time. It is no proof in the common acceptation of the term.

There is no need for me to repeat the evidence contained in my reply (ante, p. 11) in respect to the Globe Alley on the north of Maiden Lane. It is shown by Visscher in his view of Southwark ; it is also shown by Merian and by Vanden Hoeye, and by Morden & Lea, and by Boisseau in his ' Profil de la Ville de Londre.' Globe Alley was not " hypothetical " to these men who made their autoptic views.

But DR. MARTIN says that my " faith in the literal accuracy of Visscher's repre- sentation of the Clink is far greater than his own." This undoubtedly is so, and I may point out that the contemporary evidence is the best evidence, and to deny the accuracy of Visscher is to condemn Merian, Vanden Hoeye, Morden & Lea, and also Boisseau, without advancing any substantial reason for doubting their accuracy. I admit that they may have copied from each other, but the reasons advanced by DR. MARTIN in support of Visscher being " wholly unreliable " clearly and undeniably show that DR. MARTIN has misread the view. He has fallen into the error of mistaking the way or lane, Globe Alley, leading to the Playhouse, for Maiden Lane. I have seen his article in The Antiquary, in which he has uncon- sciously made the same error. He refers me to this article, in which, he says, are the reasons set out for thinking that the lane indicated by Visscher represents the firsi part of Maiden Lane.

No reasons are advanced in The Antiquary for his conclusions ; he has apparently slippec unconsciously in mistaking one lane for th other.

If DR. MARTIN will examine Visscher in the light of what I have attempted to poin out, he will find that Maiden Lane fall wholly outside Visscher's view, and he wil


Iso discover that Visscher has " ignored " he Rose Playhouse for the same reason, f the view had been rightly interpreted, t would not have been so light! y con- [emned. GEORGE HTJBBARD, F.S.A.

(To be continued.)


FITZJAMES.

(11 S. xii. 100.)

AM net aware how far your correspondent ms pursued the history of his family, but I im hopeful that the references which I am giving below may contain some new facts, and perhaps give clues to what he is actually seeking. If all the material to which I refer is worked up, a very considerable body of information will be available. It was ny intention at first to write a narrative account of the Fitzjames family, but I ound the data soon became too ample for .he pages of ' N. & Q.'

Put briefly, the story of the family 3egins with James Fitzjames, who lived in he fifteenth century, and married Elearor Dray cot, ' daughter of Simon Draycot, }he heiress of Redlynch, a house near Bruton (Somerset). They had three sons John, who styles himself "Senior of Redlynch " ; Richard, who became Bishop of London ; and a third, \vho was the ancestor of a branch of the family which ater on settled at Leweston in Dorsetshire. Late in the sixteenth century, or early in

he seventeenth, Redlynch passed into the hands of the Gorges family. The Somerset branch of the Fitz Jameses almost disappears, though some are found at Charlton Mackrell. Other places where search should be made are Uphill, Corston, North Cheriton, Long Burton (Dorset), and, of course, Bruton.

The principal source for the history of the family is an article in the Somersetshire Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1878, by the Rev. Frederick Brown. This contains a collection of excerpts from Fitzjames wills, and I have rarely read a more delightful series of testamentary extracts. Mr. Brown made researches at Somerset House over a period of many years. Mr. F. A. Crisp issued privately a series of six volumes of his extracts from ' Somersetshire Wills.' The article to which I refer is an amplification of the Fitzjames items. A few copies were printed off separately as a pamphlet. The material in the article consists almost entirely of