William Pitts. Favour shewn to Benj. Tychebourne by the Lord Chief Baron.

An editorial note to this extract from the calendar continues: On the 1st of December, 1580, the Bishop of Winchester and

others were directed to examine Elizabeth Saunders, a professed nun, and Richard Houde, a server abroad of a seditious challenge. Co. Reg."

66

This note is surely in error in identifying the professed nun, who was actually Sanders's relative, with Elizabeth Pitts, a married woman, whose subsequent English career can be traced at Alton as late as 1597 and 1598. Yet, the relative who was a professed nun E." Under date Jan. 24, had as initial that is Feb. 3, Spanish style, 1590, Sir Francis Englefield, writing from Madrid to the Father Confessor of Syon, at Rouen, asked for " copies of the letters sister E. Saunders wrote me about the troubles in England.." It is unlikely that the term "sister " would be used to the Father Confessor of Syon, if Mrs. Pitts of Alton, the wife of a Protestant, with whom she co-habited, was intended.

The trial of Campion took place on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1581, at Westminster Hall. When his hand was held up to plead it was noted by the spectators that the finger nails were absent. This has generally been attributed to the racking. Letters of Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador, are to be found in the Spanish State Papers. He recounts that steel wedges had been driven in under the nails, thus forced off.

Campion had been captured at Lyford Grange in Berkshire, the house of Mr. Francis Yates. Subsequent searches of his house were made and Vol. cxcviii. D.S.P., under date Feb. 12, contains a letter written from Wadley, a place not to be found in Lewis's Gazetteer, by Edward Unton to Walsingham. The raid at Lyfford had been made for one Ardern, who had escaped. Amongst those taken were Yates's servants, John Doe and Richard Buckly (not to be confused with Sir Richard Buckley, another recusant).. These two had acknowledged that they had been received into the Roman Catholic Church whilst Campion was at Lyfford.

Yates himself was under lock and key when the February raid occurred. He figures in a list of June, 1582, probably a return made by the sheriff : "The names of certain recusants." Since these probably include a good number of Campion's congregation at the Grange, they are worth transcribing: Francis Yates, Gilbert Welles, Richard Cleyborne, William Smyth, Lionel Jenninges, Thomas

John Dewe is probably the John Doe of the preceding note. Lionel Jennings at once suggests Edmund Jennings who was taken durMass in the Gray's Inn Road, at the house of Mr. Swithin Wells. ing

Edward Shelley had a co-religionist, William Shelley, mentioned in a list of July, 1582, with Erasmus Saunders and others, as a papist taken with his books.

John Lounder was in December, 1587, a prisoner in the Tower, where he may have met Mr. Roscarrock, a priest, who for some reason did not perish for his faith. He was five years in the Tower, before the Governor petitioned for his release, the keep of the him. priest being unlikely ever to be discharged to

A let

Thomas Harris was probably a spy, left with Henry Vaux, son of Lord Vaux. ter of 1586 to Walsingham from ][ desires leave for the anonymous but known correspondent to repair to Court. He informs Walsingham that much useful matter might be learned from Thomas Harris, a trusty servant of Mr. Henry Vaux (D.S.P., lxcv. 27).

deeds of the Papists on May 2, 1685, menA. B., writing to Walsingham about like tions that Henry Vaux was intrusted with funds for the relief of priests. He and "Edmonds" the Jesuit, and other priests had assembled at the house of Mr. Wylford at Hogesdon, where Wylford appointed the disposition of the money for the necessities of the priests. Elsewhere also the name of Henry Vaux (Vause in the list previously transcribed) is associated with that of Parsons, the Jesuit.

Whilst it is clear that Walsingham's correspondent was not Norris, it seems difficult to acquit the latter of continued treachery.

To return to Elizabeth Pitts, "the natural sister of Dr. Saunders and wife of Henry Pitts, the father of William Pitts," recusant and disseminator of Campion's challenge.

In 1585, Bishop Cowper, then in the second or third year of his tenure of the see of Winchester, to which he had been trans

ferred in 1583, advises Walsingham against any favour being shown to the wife of one Mr. Pitts of Alton, committed to the Clink, who was a very obstinate woman and natural sister [i.e., not sister-in-law, J. c. w.] to N. Saunders, the Traitor. Her return to Winchester would do more harm than ten sermons would do good.".

In 1597, Elizabeth Pitts's husband, Henry Pitts of Alton, died. His will, 87 Lewyn, is endorsed in the margin of the register as the will of Thomas Pitts. This is one of many singularities that may be noted in its perusal.

The testator, Henry Pitts, desires to be buried at Alton. To the cathedral of Winchester, he leaves 12d.; to the church of Alton, 6s. 8d.; to the poor there, 40s. ; to Mr. Barlow, the Vicar, 10s. These bequests sufficiently indicate that the testator was a Protestant. Mr. Barlow cannot be identified with certainty from the particulars given, but he may possibly be William Barlow, the Archdeacon, son of the well-known Bishop of Chichester, Parker's consecrator.

The

The relatives, named by Henry Pitts, include a sister, Agnes Pope, and a brother's son, William Pitts, then, in 1597, a minor. principal bequest takes the form of a clumsily drafted devise of а life estate to his wife Elizabeth, with remainder to his son Robert in fee. No mention is made of William Pitts the recusant's other son, and Dr. Nicholas Saunders's nephew and abettor. To Elizabeth Pitts, the wife of Henry, he leaves, "the parlour I do now lye in as it is now furnished, and the buttery with the two chambers over them, with all the furniture thereof," during her natural life. After the death of Elizabeth, this would also accrue to Robert. The residue of the estate is devised to Elizabeth and Robert jointly, a procedure which would enable her to raise capital sums, and at the same time might obviate the necessity of her making a will. The witnesses are Robert Dannott, Michael or Nicholas Fylder and Mr. William Hanburie, the writer of the will.

Probate was granted on 8 July, 1598, to Elizabeth, the widow of Robert Pitts, who had in the meantime died, and who while he lived had been one of the executors of Henry Pitts, his father, of which will, Elizabeth Pitts the elder, the other executor named therein, had expressly renounced probate.

Her act, in renouncing probate, may have had as motive her objection to being sworn in an ecclesiastical court before ecclesiastical

persons. That her daughter-in-law became sole executor would not in any way affect either the joint estate that Elizabeth took by survivorship, or the life estate that now preceded the remainder to the heirs of Robert and Elizabeth Pitts the younger.

This Robert Pitts had made his will upon the 27th February following his father's death, a will proved upon the same day as his father's. He describes himself as of Wiatte in the parish of Alton, and desires to be buried in the parish church there, where his father lay. In addition to pious and eleemosynary bequests like to those of the preceding will, he leaves to the poor of Estewordham 3s. 4d., and to Mr. Barlow, for a sermon at burial, 10s. He names aunts who of were sisters either of Henry Pitts, or Nicholas Sanders. They are, an aunt Swinden to whom he bequeathed the house wherein she dwelt, for life; an aunt Butler and an aunt Sherrier. To his children, minors, he leaves £50 each, and the residual estate to his wife, Elizabeth, whilst a widow, with reduction in favour of the portioned children upon re-marriage. The witnesses of the will were Robert Pitts's brothers-in-law, William Fromond and George Myllett; the witnesses John Hunt, Robert Dannott, Lawrence Geale, Nicholas Feilder, and Mr. William Hanbury, the writer of the will. The probate, as in the case of Henry Pitt's will, was granted to John Coston, notary public, procurator for Elizabeth, relict of Robert.

These wills provide a basis for the extension of knowledge of Nicholas Sanders.

Conjecture only will help in the elucidation of the ancestry of Edmund Campion. In his straits, he used two pseudonyms, Patricke and Hastings. Simon Patricke of Caistor, Lincs., the grandfather of the Bishop of Ely, was a contemporary of Campion. He travelled in France, and translated into English I. Gentillet's treatise against The Prince,' by Machiavelli.

The book is dedicated to Patricke's kinsmen, Francis Hastings, son of the Earl of Huntingdon and Edward, son of Nicholas Bacon.

Near Market Rasen, where the Patrick family was situated, Henry Campion was Rector of Linwood shortly after Simon Patricke's time. The coincidences that conjoin the names of Patrick, Hastings and Campion, in the lifetimes of two separate and contemporaneous persons, are scarcely sufficient to justify a theory, but are sufficiently peculiar to raise the suggestion that Edmund Campion may have availed him

J. C. WHITEBROOK.

24 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn.

EDWARD BABER (cliv. 21, s.v. Unpublished Letters of Warren Hastings). What authority is there for the statement that Edward Baber, the addressee of the letters from Warren Hastings, which are now being published in 'N. & Q.,' was at one time Secretary to the Governor and Council of Bombay"? I have ascertained from various sources the following facts regarding Baber. He was the son of Thomas Draper Baber, sometime of Sonning Hill Park, Berks, anr, was baptized at Warrington on June 20, 1746. In 1763 he went out to Bengal as a writer in the service of the East India Company; and became a factor in 1768, a junior merchant in 1771 and a senior merchant in 1774. From 1770 to 1772 he was Resident at Midnapore, and from 1774 to 1780 was at Moorshedabad, first as chief and then as

President of the Provincial Council. The date of his return to England is given in one of the recently published letters of Warren Hastings to Sir John Macpherson (January 30, 1780; ed. Dodwell, p. 60). Hastings writes: I have commissioned my friend Mr. Baber, who went home on a Dutch ship, the Lamb, the beginning of this Month [sc. January, 1780] to tell you all he knew and to receive from you all you knew: but I am affraid on Recollection that I forgot to give him an Introduction to you. I now perform this ceremony to both. Trust him implicitly. He is warmly my Friend, a Man of strict Honor, and you will find him one after your own Heart. There is no evidence, as far as am aware, that he came back to India. In 1783 he was active, along with Major Scott (Waring) and Laurence Sulivan, in collecting materials for the Company's case against Fox's India Bill: and was formally thanked by the Special Committee of Proprietors appointed to watch over the rights of the Company (Holzman The Nabobs in England,' p. 131, quoting from the Public Advertiser of December 24, 1783). His death on April 19, 1827, at the age of eighty-one, at his house in Park Street, London, is recorded in the Gentleman's Maga

zine.

and whose name appears for the last time in the East India Register for 1830, when he is stated to be at home" ; and Edward Henry Baber, writer 1832, and assistant collector of Ratnagivi, who died at Kannur on March 26, 1834.

EVAN COTTON.

[The letters now in course of publication in N. & Q' were the subject of a short article by the Rev. G. T. Shettle in the Glasgow Herald of Sept. 26, 1908, according to whom "Mr. Baber had at one time been Secretary to the Governor and Council of Bombay."]

BLOTTING-PAPER AND INKSTANDS (cliii. 459; cliv. 35).-Many old people must remember the use of sand instead of blotting-paper, and must have noticed the glistening particles of sand on a dried or half-dried page. Perhaps it will not be thought irrevelant to mention another substitute for blotting-paper with which I was familiar when I was a boy, though it was not kept in an inkstand. This was pounce, or pumice stone reduced to powder. My father always kept pounce in a turned ivory box in the drawer of his writing-table, though in my time, excepting perhaps on rare occasions, it was no longer used. At this noment his box is before me. It is beautifully made, about two inches in height, and has a little tube which screws on to the top, and through which the pounce was sprinkled. I have only seen one like it; that was in Scarsdale House, Wright's Lane, Kensington (long ago "improved away), delightful old mansion was still occupied by when that the Curzon family. PHILIP NORMAN.

TEASDALE AND HIS WIFE (cliv. 43).— In the Rev. D. Macleane's 'History of Pembroke College,' Oxford, of which Teasdale was co-founder. it is stated that "before he was 20 years old, on June 10, 1567, he was married to a young Abingdon widow, two years his senior-Mawde, daughter of Reynold Stone (a flourishing inhabitant of Henley-on-Thames) and relict of Edward Little, of Oxford and Abingdon." Mrs. Teasdale outlived her husband by six years, so there is no question of a second wife. ment that there is no record of Teasdale's With regard to your correspondent's statefamily at his birth-place, Stanford Dingley, there on Oct. 13, 1547, and that " Mr. Macleane writes that he was baptized the entry Thomas Teysdall's' christening is still

who was the

to be seen.

S. F.