ii s. iv. DEC. 2, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
441
LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1911.
CONTENTS. -No. 101.
NOTES : Robert Aske, 441 Dickens and th* Inscribed Stone, 443 " Scotland for Ever !" 444 Dr. Johnson and Dr. Dodd A Racket Cow, 445 Bassett or Bassock Family Death of Wolfe Wart Charms Otter at a CUy Station Regimental Sobriquets Henry Oliver, Centen- arian " Samhowd," 446.
QUERIES: Hebrew Medal ^penser and Dante-Lady Hamilton's Hair Matthew Prior of Long Island Mor- land's Inn Sign, 447 Lady Bulmer Ant-igallican Society Bennetto Family 'The Robbers' Cave' St. Bride's: J. Pridden Anvil Cure Yarm : Private Brown Glastonbury, and Joseph of Arimathea Latin Accentua- tion, 448 Authors Wanted Dillon on Disraeli Old Sampler Lucius The Dublin Gunns Bequest of Bibles 'The Young Man's Companion 'North Devon Words c. 1600 Murder in America Hadria Geese and Michael- mas Day, 450.
REPLIES : Early Arms of France, 450 Municipal Records Printed. 451 Ceylon Officials : Capt. Anderson, 453 Duke of Wellington's First School Friday as Christian Name, 454 Hulda American National Flower 'Progress of Error ' Tattershall : Grantham, 455 Peers immortalized by Public-Houses Urban V.'s Family Name Bradshaw the Regicide, 456 Porch Inscription in Latin Lowther Family -Church with Wooden Bell- Turret Burgh-on-Sands, 457 -Noble Families in Shake- speare " Broken Counsellor " Weare and Thurtell "Fent" John Downman Bearded Soldiers Military Executions, 458 " Shoe her horse round" 'The Noon Gazette ' Du Bellay Diatoric Teeth -R. Anstruther, M.P. Mr. Stock, Bibliophile, 459.
NOTES ON BOOKS : ' A Thomas Hardy Dictionary ' Dean Swift's Correspondence, Vol. II 1 King Arthur in History and Legend ' ' Notes on Phipps Families.'
Notices to Correspondents.
ROBERT ASKE.
OF the life of this famous leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace prior to the rebellion very little is known. A slight addition to our knowledge is made by a MS. recently acquired by the British Museum, and it seems well that this should be recorded. The MS. in question (now Add. MS. 38133) was formerly Phillipps MS. 3765. It is described both in the Phillipps catalogue and in the 1911 sale catalogue as containing genealogical collections by Robert Aske, but Sir Thomas Phillipps, who published several items from the MS. in vol. i. of the
- Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica '
(pp. 20, 168, 243, 324), does not seem to have identified this person with the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace. He has written a pencil note on the back of the cover, stating that
- 'the name of the Author of these Pedigrees
anpears to have been Robert Aske, ' Servant to the Earl of Northumberland,' and a Herald by profes- sion. Qu. if any account of him in Noble's History of the College of Arms?"
The internal evidence of the MS., however,
furnishes very strong grounds for believing,
firstly, that the Aske mentioned in it was
the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and,
secondly, that he was not the collector of the
pedigrees and miscellaneous notes contained
in the volume.
I will discuss the second inference first. The papers conjecturally or certainly con- nected with Aske are all, with one exception, legal in character, mainly notes of law readings and cases, and forms of writs and proceedings, and they seem to have no connexion with the genealogical and his- torical collections which occupy the greater part of the volume. With one exception, they all fall within ff. 7-13 ; but the original foliation, dating from not later than about the middle of the sixteenth century, begins on f. 13 b with the first pedigree, although, since f. 14 forms a single sheet with f. 8, the contents of which follow on from f. 7, part at least of these preliminary papers must have belonged to the volume from the beginning. The contents of the volume are very miscellaneous, and many hands are represented. Some entries are by persons certainly other than Aske, or of a later date than Aske's death ; e.g., on f. 35 a number of notes on Charleton arms are signed "Edward Charleton" with the date 1550, 4 Edw. VI. So, too, on f. 50, in a pedigree of the Hamertons, a note is added to Sir Stephen Hamerton's name " pendeu a Tyborne a 29 H. 8 " (1537). As Hamerton was executed for complicity in the Pilgrim- age of Grace, and Aske was at this time a prisoner, he can hardly have written this note, or compiled this pedigree, which is in the same hand as several others in the volume. These facts do not, of course, prove that the collection was not made by some other Robert Aske than Aske of Aughton, but they clearly rule out the latter ; and since the Aske papers have, as mentioned above, no internal connexion with the rest of the collection, and are in hands which do not occur elsewhere, it seems unlikely that the Aske mentioned in them had anything to do with the compila- tion of the volume.
It remains to consider the evidence identifying the Aske here mentioned with the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Almost the only facts recorded of the latter in the ' D.N.B.,' apart from his connexion with the movement, are that he was a lawyer and that he belonged to the Aughton branch of the family, both of which state- ments can be confirmed from documents
