Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/390

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384


NOTES AND QUERIES. [WB.JL NOV. 11.1918.


Tjegan to cut down salaries, and more un- wisely still tried to shelve some of the most distinguished and best-paid members of the -company. The consequence was that Bet t er- ton, with a strong following, seceded, and on March 25, 1695, a licence was granted him to perform in a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here in the winter of the same year Mrs. Bout ell played one of her favourite

  • ' breeches " roles, Constantia in Granville's

witty ' The She Gallants.' In the early spring of 1696 she appeared as Semanthe, Queen of Cyprus, in Powell's robustious ' The Treacherous Brothers.' About March she acted Thomyris, the Scythian queen in Banks' s ' Cyrus the Great.' The same year we find her cast as Dowdy, Squire Wouldbe's wife, in ' She Ventures and He Wins.'* Dogget, the famous low comedian, played Wouldbe. She also acted Clare in Harris's ' The City Bride,' an indifferent alteration of Webster's 'A Cure for a Cuckold,' which met with scant success. After 1696 Mrs. Boutell's name is not found. For nearly a decade her appearances had become less and less frequent, and she retired before the spring of 1697. She was moderately wealthy, and lived many years more in comfort and ease. " Besides what she saved by Playing, the Generosity of some happy Lovers enabled her to quit the Stage before she grew old." The date of her dea+h is unknown.

MONTAGUE SUMMERS.


QUEEN ELIZABETH'S PALACE,

ENFIELD :

DR. ROBERT UVEDALE, SCHOLAR

AXD BOTANIST: THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, ENFIELD.

(See ante, p. 361.) II. DR. ROBERT UVEDALE. (PART I.)

THERE is an excellent biographical account of Dr. Robert Uvedale contributed by Mr. G. S. Boulger to The Journal of Botany (1891), vol. xxix. N.S., in which full refer- ences are made to Robinson's ' History of Enfield ' ; Hutchins's ' History of Dorset ' ; the late Mr. Granville Leveson - Gower's ' Notices of the Family of Uvedale,' in vol. iii. of the ' Surrey Archaeological Collections ' (1865); and other authorities.

We learn that lie was born on May 25, 1642, his baptismal entry at St. Margaret's, Westminster, being set out in full in the late

  • Anon. The preface is signed " Ariadne."


Rev. Mackenzie Walcott's ' Memorials of Westminster' (1849, p. 158), as follows: " 1642. May 31. Robert Uvdale, son to Robert, baptized." It is stated that his father was of St. Margaret's, died in 1683, and that he had two sons besides the botanist one who died young ; and the other, Thomas, born in 1650, is said to have been the author of ' The Memoirs of Philip de Comines,' in 2 vols., published in 1712. I find that the title-page ascribes this book to " Mr. Uvedale " ; and in the list of sub- scribers appear the names of " Robert Uvedale, LL.D.," and of other members of the family. His mother's name is given as Margaret, but it is not stated what her maiden name was.

Mr. Robinson in his ' History of Enfield,' as we have seen, states that Uvedale took possession of the old Manor House about 1660 for the purposes of his new school, which he afterwards carried on there under flourishing conditions, he being at that time master of the Grammar School at Enfiek 1 , founded just at the end of Queen Mary's reign.

I think Mr. Robinson must be mistaken as to this having taken place at so early a date. Indeed, all that is known of Uvedale' s scholastic career precludes the possibility of this. He was elected a scholar of Trin. Coll., Camb., on April 29, 1659, from Westminster School, his name being then registered as " Robert Udall " (see ' List of Queen's Scholars of St. Peter's College, Westminster,' collected by Jos. Welch, new edition, 1852). At Westminster he was a pupil of the celebrated Dr. Busby ; and during his school career there it is recorded of him that at the funeral of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 he snatched one of the escutcheons from the bier of the Protector, which, framed and with a Latin inscription recording the circum- stances of its capture, was preserved in the family at least till 1794* (see Gent. Mag., vols. Ixii. 114; Ixiv. 197). When he graduated as B.A. in 1662 his name seems to have been entered as " Uvedall " (see Luard's ' Graduati Cantabrigienses,' where his sons and grandsons appear as " Uve- dale").


  • Since I wrote the above Mr. Algernon Ashton,

a lineal descendant, on the female side, of the botanist, has informed me that he himself saw the escutcheon about the year 1885 when in the possesfcion of the late Rev. Washbourne West, then Bursar of Lincoln College, Oxford, who was also a descendant, in the same line, of Dr. Robert Uvedale. He believes that it is still in the keeping of a member of the family.