Notes and Queries, Number 177, March 19, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 177, March 19, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
"Que le titre de Duc de Brunoy ait été donné réellement par Louis
XVIII. à Lord Wellington, c'est croyable. Le roi pouvait créer ce duché
en sa faveur, sans blesser aucune susceptibilité militaire. Mais que ce
prince politique ait pu nommer Maréchal de France un général étranger,
auquel il préférait donner le cordon du Saint-Esprit, plutôt que la
simple croix de la Légion-d'Honneur, qu'on cherche en vain dans la
liste des Ordres dont Lord Wellington fut décoré, c'est plus difficile
à croire, à moins que cette nomination n'ait eu lieu avec des reserves
et des conditions de secret, qui auraient fort peu satisfait celui
qu'on supposait, sans doute, ambitieux d'un pareil honneur, puisque on
le lui offrait. Le nombre des Maréchaux fut limité et non augmenté sous
la Restoration. Louis XVIII. crea une Maréchale, il est vrai;--Si Lord
Wellington fut nommé Maréchal, ce titre, restreint à une qualification
honorifique, comme celle de la veuve de Moreau, ne put jamais lui
conférer aucun rang dans l'armée Française. Je somme ici le roi d'armes
Jarretière de vouloir bien produire le diplôme du noble duc."
No man ever stood less in need of foreign orders than the Duke of
Wellington; and no man ever {284} had so many of them conferred upon him.
As he was the last to assume a title that did not belong to him, so he
would have been the first to repudiate any such pretension, if put forward
by others on his behalf. Allow me therefore to ask, Would it be
inconsistent with what is due to the memory of the great Duke, or with our
sense of national honour, to undertake the task of clearing up the doubts
thus thrown out respecting his claim to the title of Maréchal de France? I
believe these doubts have been repeated in other French journals, and that
no reply has yet been made to them by the English press.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
_Prophecy in Hoveden._--I should be extremely obliged if any one of your
numerous readers would give me the following information. In the account
given by Hoveden (p. 678. of the Frankfort edition of Sir H. Savile's
_Scriptores post Bedam_) of the proceedings during the stay of Richard I.
at Messina, that author says:
"Then was fulfilled the prophecy which was found written in ancient
characters on tablets of stone, near a vill of the King of England,
which is called 'Here,' and which King Henry gave to William
Fitz-Stephen. Here the said William built a new house on a pinnacle, on
which he placed the figure of a stag, which is supposed to have been
done that the said prophecy might be fulfilled, which was to the
following effect:
'Whan thu seches in Here hert yreret.
Than sulen Engles in three be ydeled.
That han sal into Yrland altolate waie,
That other into Puille mid prude bi seue,
The thridde into Airhahen herd alle wreken drechegen.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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