"The pliant Sir William Petre was succeeded by a son who, as a firm Catholic, lived in retirement, running a well-built house complete with a set of drains which remained in uninterrupted use until 1952, when the plumber repaired them to a plan of 1566, fetched from the Record Office for the occasion."

Conrad Russell, The Crisis of Parliaments ( ( Read more... )

Written by Henry Hawley, ed. C.T. Atkinson, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research vol. 25 (1947), p 154 ( Read more... )

I've had a few rounds on eBay recently, and while was unwilling to pay over the odds for an issue of DWFC Mag from 1973, with the first review of The Three Doctors, I did pick up a couple of issues of In Vision. This caught my eye from issue 50, covering Warriors' Gate"[Steve/Stephen Gallagher's] first commission was a six-part science-fiction ( Read more... )

I read that in 1689 the Bishop of Chester was in receipt of £200 per annum from the government to support "4 Lancashire preachers". I imagine either four preachers whose job it was to promote the benefits of Lancashire to those in Chester, or who were either sent out to Lancashire to tell everyone there that, really, Cheshire was the best place to

From an MS newsletter written probably for either Thomas, fifth Baron Wharton, or Theophilus Hastings, seventh earl of Huntingdon, 9 February 1698/99, Bod MS Carte 228 fo 281 ( Read more... )

“We are informed, that the Lord Mohun being lately at Callais, happened to quarrel with a Capt about some horses he would had to be carryed to Dunkerke; insomuch there they fought and the Lord Mohun was ran through the body ( Read more... )

“The Bishop of Chichester dyed on Saturday last having had his Leg off which was broke by getting out of his Coach when he found the Coachman thrown out of the Box and the Horses still going on.”

Bod MS Carte 233 fo 26a, Newsletter, 29 September 1696.

"Mr Bridges Father in Law to the D:[uke] of Shrewsbury Dyd sudenly by cutting the nail of his Toe Gangrened, & the next day his Leg was cut off & he dyed the Morning after."

Bod MS Carte 211 fo. 138, Ralph Wingate to an unknown correspondent, c. 4 September 1713.

...I've found Thomas Carte's (I assume) transcription of what he thinks is Gildas but which actually seems to be 'Nennius':

In illis diebus Saxones in valescebant et crescebant non modice in Britanniâ. Mortuo auten Henegisto, ochta filius ejus transivit de sinistrali parte Britannie ad Regem Cantuariorum et de ipso orti sunt Reges illius Patre. ( Read more... )

Jonathan Swift, in The Examiner, 9 November 1710, cited an exchange between Lord Dartmouth and the earl of Wharton in the House of Lords ( Read more... )