Chapter C: H. Howard

Edinburgh.

[This phrase, according to Grose, "originated in the days of good Queen
Bess. When great chimnies were in fashion, there was at each corner of
the hearth, or grate, a small elevated projection, called _hob_, and
behind it a seat. In winter-time the beer was placed on the hob to
warm; and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been
called the _nob_: so that the {87} question, Will you have hob or nob?
seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? _i.e._ beer
from the hob, or beer from the nob." But Nares, in his _Glossary_, s.v.
_Habbe_ or _Nabbe_, with much greater reason, shows that _hob_ or
_nob_, now only used convivially, to ask a person whether he will have
a glass of wine or not, is most evidently a corruption of the old
_hab-nab_, from the Saxon _habban_, to have, and _nabban_, not to have;
in proof of which, as Nares remarks, Shakspeare has used it to mark an
alternative of another kind:

"And his incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction
can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre: _hob, nob_ is his
word; give't or take't."--_Twelfth Night_, Act III. Sc. 4.]

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Replies.

WELLESLEY PEDIGREE.

(Vol. vi., pp. 508. 585.)

There is an anxiety to obtain further particulars on this interesting subject, and I have searched my Genealogical MSS. Collections for such; the result has extended farther than I could have wished, but, while I am able to furnish _dates_ and _authorities_ for hitherto naked statements, I have inserted two or three links of descent not before laid down.

A member of the Somersetshire Wellesleighs is said to have accompanied Henry II. to Ireland.

Walleran or Walter de Wellesley, living in Ireland in 1230 (Lynch, _Feud. Dig._), witnessed a grant of certain townlands to the Priory of Christ Church about 1250 (_Registry of Christ Church_); while it is more effectively stated that he then "endowed the Priory of All Saints with 60 a. of land, within the manor of Cruagh, _which then belonged, with other estates, to his family_, and that he gave to the said priory _free common of pasture, of wood and of turbary, over his whole mountain there_."

His namesake and son (according to Lynch, _Feud. Dig._), "Walran de Wylesley," was in 1302 required, as one of the "Fideles" of Ireland, by three several letters, to do service in the meditated war in Scotland (_Parl. Writs_, vol. i. p. 363.), and in the following year he was slain (_MS. Book of Obits, T.C.D._). The peerage books merge these two Wallerans in one.

William de Wellesley, who appears to have been son to Walleran, was in 1309 appointed Constable of the Castle of Kildare (_Rot. Pat. Canc. Hib._), which he maintained when besieged by the Bruces in their memorable invasion of Ireland, and their foray over that county. For these and other services to the state he received many lucrative and honourable grants from the crown, and was summoned to parliament in 1339. In 1347 he was slain at the siege of Calais. (_Obits, T.C.D._)

Sir John de Wellesly, Knight, son of William, having performed great actions against the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of Wicklow, had grants of sundry wardships and other rewards from the year 1335. In 1343 he became one of the sureties for the appearance of the suspected Earl of Desmond, on whose flight Sir John's estates were seised to the crown and withheld for some years. (Lynch's _Feud. Dig._)

His successor was another John de Wellesley, omitted in the peerage books, but whose existence is shown by _Close Roll 29 & 30 Edw. III., C. H._ He died about the year 1355.

William Wellesley, son of John, was summoned to great councils and parliaments of Ireland from 1372; he was also entrusted by the king with various important commissions and custodies of castles, lands, and wards (_Patent Rolls C. H._). In 1386 he was Sheriff of Kildare, and Henry IV. renewed his commission in 1403.

Richard, son and heir of William de Wellesley, as proved by _Rot. Pat. 1 Henry IV., Canc. Hib._, married Johanna, daughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas de Castlemartin, by whom the estates of Dangan, Mornington, &c. passed to the Wellesley family; he and his said wife had confirmation of their estates in 1422. (_Rot. Pat. 1 Henry VI., C. H._) He had a previous grant from the treasury by order of the Privy Council, in consideration of his long services as sheriff of the county of Kildare, and yet more actively "in the wars of Munster, Meath, and Leinster, with men and horses, arms and money." (_Rot. Claus. 17 Ric. II., C. H._) In 1431 he was specially commissioned to advise the crown on the state of Ireland, and was subsequently selected to take charge of the Castle of Athy, as "the fittest person to maintain that fortress and key of the country against the malice of the Irish enemy." (_Rot. Pat. et Claus. 9 Henry VI., C. H._) In resisting that "malice" he fell soon after.

The issue of Sir Richard de Wellesley by Johanna were William Wellesley, who married Katherine ----, and dying in 1441 was succeeded by his next brother, Christopher Wellesley, whose recorded fealty in the same year proves all the latter links; his succession to William as brother and heir, and the titles of Johanna as widow of his father Richard, and of Katherine as widow of William, to dower off said estates. (_Rot. Claus. 19 Henry VI._, _C. H._) At and previous to this time, another line of this family, connected as cousins with the house of Dangan, flourished in the co. Kildare, where they were recognised as Palatine Barons of Norragh to the close of the seventeenth century. William Wellesley of Dangan was the son and heir of Christopher. An (unprinted) act of Edward IV. was passed in 1472 in favour of this William; and his two marriages are stated by Lynch (_Feud. Dig._): the first was to {88} Ismay Plunkett; the second, to Maud O'Toole, was contracted under peculiar circumstances. The law of Ireland at the time prohibited the intermarriages of the English with the natives without royal licence therefor being previously obtained, and not even did the licence so obtained wash out the _original sin_ of Irish birth; for, as in this instance, Maud, having survived her first husband, on marrying her second, Patrick Hussey, had a fresh licence to legalise that marriage. It is of record (_Rot. Pat. 21 Henry VII., C. H._), and proves the second marriage of Sir William clearly: yet it is not noticed in any of the peerage books, which derive his issue from the first wife, and not from the second, as Lynch gives it, that issue being Gerald the eldest son, Walter the second, and Alison a daughter.

Gerald had a special livery of his estate in 1539; Walter the second son became Bishop of Kildare in 1531, and died its diocesan in 1539 (see Ware's _Bishops_); and the daughter Alison intermarried with John Cusack of Cushington, co. Meath. (Burke's _Landed Gentry_, Supp. p. 88.)

Gerald, according to all the peerage books, married Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1483, and had issue William, his eldest son, Lord of Dangan, who married Elizabeth Cusack, of Portrane, co. Dublin, and died previous to 1551 (as I believe is proveable by _inquisitions_ of that year in the office of the Chief Remembrancer, Dublin), leaving Gerald, his eldest son and heir. An inquiry taken in 1579 as to the extent of the manor of Dangan, finds him then seised thereof (_Inquis. in C. H. 23 Eliz._). Previous to this he appears a party in conveyances of record, as in 1564, &c. He had a son Edward (not mentioned in the peerage books), who joined in a family conveyance of 1599, and soon after died, leaving a son, Valerian Wellesley. Gerald himself died in 1603, leaving said Valerian, his grandson and heir, then aged ten (_Inquis. 5 Jac. I. in Rolls Office_), and _married_, adds the Inquisition; and Lynch, in his _Feudal Dignities_, gives interesting particulars of the betrothal of this boy, and his public repudiation of the intended match on his coming to age. This Valerian is traced through Irish records to the time of the Restoration; he married first, Maria Cusack (by whom he had William Wellesley, his eldest son), and, second, Anne Forth, otherwise Cusack, widow of Sir Ambrose Forth, as shown by an Inquisition of 1637, in the Rolls Office, Dublin.

William Wellesley, son and heir of Valerian, married Margaret Kempe (_Peerage Books_), and by her had Gerald Wellesley, who on the Restoration petitioned to be restored to his estates, and a Decree of Innocence issued, which states the rights of himself, his father, and his grandfather in "Dingen." This Gerald married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Dudley Colley, and their first daughter was baptized in 1663 by the name of Margaret, some evidence, in the courtesy of christenings, of Gerald's mother being Margaret. (_Registry of St. Werburgh's._) Gerald was a suitor in the Court of Claims in 1703: he left two sons; William the eldest died _s. p._, and was succeeded by Garrett, his next brother, who died also without issue in 1728, having bequeathed all the family estates to Richard Colley, second son of the aforesaid Sir Dudley Colley, and testator's uncle, enjoining upon said Richard and his heirs male to bear thenceforth, as they succeeded to the estates, the name and arms of Wellesley.

This Richard Colley Wellesley married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sale, LL.D. and M.P., by whom he had issue Garrett Wellesley, born, as the _Dublin and London Magazine_ for 1735 announces, "19th July," when "the Lady of Richard Colley Westley was delivered of a son and heir, _to the great joy of that family_." This son was father of the Marquis Wellesley and of the DUKE OF WELLINGTON!

JOHN D'ALTON.

48. Summer Hill, Dublin.

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CONSECRATED RINGS FOR EPILEPSY.

(Vol. vi., p. 603.)

SIR W. C. T. has opened a very interesting field for inquiry regarding these blest rings.

St. Edward, in his last illness (obiit January 5, 1066), gave a ring which he wore to the Abbot of Westminster. The origin of this ring is surrounded by much mystery. A pilgrim is said to have brought it to the king, and to have informed him that St. John the Evangelist had made known to the donor that the king's decease was at hand. "St. Edward's ring" was kept for some time at Westminster Abbey, as a relic of the saint, and was applied for the cure of the falling sickness or epilepsy, and for cramp. From this arose the custom of our English kings, who were believed to have inherited St. Edward's powers of cure, solemnly blessing every year rings for distribution.

It is said, we know not on what authority, that the ring did not always remain at Westminster, but that in the chapel of Havering (so called from _having the ring_), in the parish of Hornchurch, near Rumford in Essex (once a hunting-seat of the kings), was kept, till the dissolution of religious houses, the identical ring given by the pilgrim to St. Edward. Weaver says he saw it represented in a window of Rumford Church.

These rings seem to have been blessed for two different species of cure: first, against the falling sickness (comitialis morbus); and, secondly, against the cramp (contracta membra). For the cure of the king's evil the sovereign did not bless rings, but continued to _touch_ the patient. {89}

Good Friday was the day appointed for the blessing of the rings. They were often called "medijcinable rings," and were made both of gold and silver; and as we learn from the household books of Henry IV. and Edward IV., the metal they were composed of was what formed the king's offering to the cross on Good Friday. The following entry occurs in the accounts of the 7th and 8th years of Henry IV. (1406): "In oblacionibus Domini Regis factis adorando Crucem in capella infra manerium suum de Eltham, die Parascevis, in precio trium nobilium auri et v solidorum sterlyng, xxv s.

"In denariis solutis pro eisdem oblacionibus reassumptis, pro annulis medicinalibus inde faciendis, xxv s."

The prayers used at the ceremony of blessing the rings on Good Friday are published in Waldron's _Literary Museum_. Cardinal Wiseman has in his possession a MS. containing both the ceremony for the blessing the cramp rings, and the ceremony for the touching for the king's evil. At the commencement of the MS. are emblazoned the arms of Philip and Mary: the first ceremony is headed, "Certain prayers to be used by the quenes heignes in the consecration of the crampe rynges." Accompanying it is an illumination representing the queen kneeling, with a dish, containing the rings to be blessed, on each side of her. The second ceremony is entitled, "The ceremonye for y^e heling of them that be diseased with the kynges evill;" and has its illumination of Mary kneeling and placing her hands upon the neck of the diseased person, who is presented to her by the clerk; while the chaplain, in alb and stole, kneels on the other side. The MS. was exhibited at a meeting of the Archæological Institute on 6th June, 1851. Hearne, in one of his manuscript diaries in the Bodleian, lv. 190., mentions having seen certain prayers to be used by Queen Mary at the blessing of cramp rings. May not this be the identical MS. alluded to?

But, to come to W. C. T.'s immediate question, "When did the use of these blest rings by our sovereigns cease?" The use never ceased till the change of religion. In addition to the evidence already given of the custom in the fifteenth century, may be added several testimonies of its continuance all through the sixteenth century. Lord Berners, when ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., writing "to my Lord Cardinal's grace" from Saragossa, June 31, 1518, says, "If your grace remember me with some crampe ryngs, ye shall doo a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with goddes grace." (_Harl. MS._ 295. f. 119. See also Polydore Virgil, _Hist._ i. 8.; and Harpsfield.) Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction to Knowledge_, mentions the blessing of these rings: "The kynges of England doth halow every yere crampe rynges, y^e which rynges worne on one's finger doth helpe them whych hath the crampe:" and again, in his _Breviary of Health_, 1557, f. 166., mentions as a remedy against the cramp, "The kynge's majestie hath a great helpe in this matter, in halowing crampe ringes, and so given without money or petition."

A curious remnant or corruption of the use of cramp rings is given by Mr. G. Rokewode, who says that in Suffolk "the use of cramp rings, as a preservative against fits, is not entirely abandoned. Instances occur where nine young men of a parish each subscribe a crooked sixpence, to be moulded into a ring, for a young woman afflicted with this malady." (_History, &c._, 1838, Introd. p. xxvi.)

CEYREP.

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TURNER'S VIEW OF LAMBETH PALACE.

(Vol. vii., p. 15.)