Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/263

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

11 S. XL MAR. 27, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


253


argument in bane between judges and counsel. In the end sentence of death was passed upon him, and he was committed to prison, where, being reprieved by the Queen's command, a form of submission was tendered to him, which he declined to sign. Another one was then drawn up. to which he did consent (the two forms are given at length in the account of the trial), and in which he invoked the Queen's mercy and pardon. Attempts were subsequently made to obtain his release and her Majesty's pardon, but they were unsuccessful. So he remained in custody, and eventually died in the Marshalsea prison about the end of the year 1592, quite heart-broken with sorrow- and grief. A very useful and concise account of the trial evidently taken from the ' State Trials ' is given in Thomas Smith's ' Select Memoirs of English and Scottish Divines,' &c., published at Glasgow in 1828.

Prof. Arber's comments on the case are, I think, worthy of reproduction here :

"There is nothing more heartrending than judicial murder for ecclesiastical opinions ; when men of the highest personal integrity and spotless citizenship come to their end unrighteously, either by long imprisonment or by swift execution. It is one of the glories of Queen Victoria's reign that no one has suffered therein the extreme penalty of the law for any simple political offence, much more for ecclesiastical matters. Yet, solely for

  • Diotrephes ' and this ' Demonstration,' John

Udall, an absolutely upright and pure-minded man, was cut off in the prime of life, a victim to the secular power and political influence of Queen Elizabeth's Bishops .He was universally re- spected by all the earnest men of the time, and even by such a man as James I. Nowadays, so far from being imprisoned to death, he would have become one of the leaders of opinion in the nation."

The reference to James I. was no doubt occasioned by the story that that king, on coming up to London from Scotland, and learning upon inquiry that Udall was then dead, exclaimed : " Upon my soul, the greatest scholar in Europe is dead ! " King James had, doubtless, derived his opinion in some measure from the publication of John Udall's ' Key of the Holy Tongue,' the first Hebrew Grammar printed in English, the first edition of which had been printed at Leyden in 1593, shortly after Udall's death, and of which I have the good fortune to possess a copy.*

  • Further particulars of John Udall, or Uvedale,

and his lineage are to be found in the 'D.N. B.' ; Hutchins's ' History of Dorset,' iii. 147 ; the late Mr. Granville Leveson Gower's 'Notices of the Family of Uvedale' in Surrey A rchccol apical Col- lections, iii. 63; and in * N. and Q ' 4 8. v. 578, and 8 8. iii. 395, 472.


To return to "Your Lordship it cart scarcely be imagined that Udall was the first person who used this style of address to the Court, and a reference to the earlier Year-Books might elicit further information on this point.

MB. WATSON has spoken of other forms at various periods of legal procedure, but has not gone so far as to note the several changes- that have been made in more modern times. I remember, of course, when the ordinary" judges of the Chancery Courts were styled " Vice-Chancellors, and were addressed as " Your Honour." After 1873, when the Judicature Acts were in force, the Chancery judges were no longer " Vice-Chancellors," but all judges of the High Court of Justice were styled alike " Your Lordship. This also was, not so long ago, the title by which the judges of the Supreme Courts in our Colonies were addressed ; but of later years an edict has gone forth that they are to be addressed as " Your Honour,"' although of unlimited jurisdiction and directly represen- tative of the Sovereign in the King's Courts,, thus putting them on a par with the limited jurisdiction of the modern County Court judges, who are addressed in the same way.

This departure, which is indicative of the growing bureaucratic tendency in our Government departments, has, I know, been keenly felt by some of the judges of our Colonial possessions, as restrictive of their independence whilst representing the Sove- reign in his judicial functions. Of course, such directions would not apply to our self- governing Colonies. One might, perhaps,, ask what sanction or authority a Govern- ment department possesses to impose regu- lations which seem directly to affect the Sovereign as the " Fountain of Honour." J. S. UDAL, F.S.A. Inner Temple.


EARLY ENGLISH RAILWAY TRAVELLING (11 S. x. 170, 215, 252, 318, 356). The Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway, in Corn- wall, was the third line of railway opened (1834) in the United Kingdom; it was seven miles long, and was incorporated with L. and S.W.R. in 1845.

In The South- Western Magazine for Febru- ary of this year, Mr. P. Liddell writes :

" This was a most primitive line, and as a boy I remember it was laid on granite sleepers, and naturally shook considerably. There were no hedges, and one day when riding on the engine, we had the pleasure of chasing a cow for a long distance, and throwing pieces of coal at it. Otten old ladies would stop the train by holding up aa