NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. * * * * * "When Found, make a note of."--Captain Cuttle. * * * * * No. 7.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1849. [Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d. * * * * * CONTENTS. NOTES:--Marriage Contract of Mary Queen of Scots Bill of Fare of 1626, by Rev. L.B. Larking Moneta Sanctae Helenae, by T. Hudson Turner Translations of Gray's Elegy On Authors and Books, No. 2, by Bolton Corney Minor Notes:--Quotations from Pope--Angels' Visits --Extract from Register of North Runcton--The Norman Crusader--Lady Jane of Westmoreland Notes in answer to Queries:--Lobster in Medal of Pretender--Straw Necklaces Answers to Minor Queries:--Ancient Motto--Political Maxim--Annus Trabeationis--Betterton's Duties of a Player--Betterton's Essay--Incumbents of Church Livings--Mare de Saham--Reinerius--Whelps-- Cowley or Cowleas QUERIES:--Berkeley's Theory of Vision Dr. Johnson and Professor de Morgan Caracciolli's Life of Lord Clive Suppressed Passages in Cartwright's Poems MINOR QUERIES:--Christencat--Hexameter Verses in the Scriptures MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Catalogues, Sales, &c. Books and Odd Volumes wanted Notices to Correspondents Advertisements * * * * * MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE EARL OF BOTHWELL. [Among the curious documents which have been produced from time to time before the House of Lords in support of peerage claims, there have been few of greater historical interest than the one which we now reprint from the Fourth Part of the Evidence taken before the Committee of Privileges on the Claim of W. Constable Maxwell, Esquire, to the title of Lord Herries of Terregles. It is a copy of the Contract of Marriage between Queen Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, which, although it is said to have been printed by Carmichael, in his _Various Tracts relating to the Peerage of Scotland, extracted from the Public Records_, has not been referred to by Robertson, or other historians of Scotland, not even by the most recent of them, Mr. Tytler. Mr. Tytler tells us that on the 12th of May, 1567, Bothwell was created Duke of Orkney, "the Queen with her own hands placing the coronet on his head," and that the marriage took place on the 15th of May, at four o'clock in the morning in the presence-chamber at Holyrood; and that on the following morning a paper, with this ominous verse, was fixed on the palace gate:-- "Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait."