146
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL AUG. 22, 1903.
surname is mentioned in Randolph's ' Archi
pelago,' 1687, p. 3. On 6 November, 1701
Richard Mico, of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane
married Sarah Joseph, at St. Dionis Back
church ; and on 2 October, 1752, Hannah
daughter of George and Hannah Mico, was
baptized at St. Peter's, Cornhill, and was
buried on the 18th of the same month (Harl
Soc., Kegg.). W. C. B.
RAKEHELL. An early instance of this wore being applied to an individual who is men tioned by name is to be found in Holinshed 1587, vol. iii. p. 1392, where Parrie is de scribed as having been u a verie runnagate and bagarant rakehell in his young yeares."
W. S.
MARRIAGE IN A SHEET. We had in Lin- colnshire (and I believe the same notion pre- vailed in many other parts of England) a firm belief that if a woman who had incurred debts were married clad in a sheet only her husband would not become responsible for them. I have heard tales concerning mar- riages of this kind nearly all my life, but have hitherto regarded them as fables. I have just come upon what seems to be a genuine instance of this strange folk-lore rite :
"On Friday week at Gedney, in Lincolnshire, David Wilkinson to widow Far-ran. The latter went to church covered with nothing but a sheet, stitched up like a bag, with slits at the sides for her bare arms ; and in that way she was betrothed standing with bare feet at the altar. It appears that during the struggles of her widowhood to support four children, she had accumulated a variety of debts, but had been told, if she married with only a sheet to cover her, she would be discharged for ever from all pecuniary incumbrances contracted prior to the wedding-day, and this formed the motive for her extraordinary conduct." JScustern Counts* Herald (Hull), 15 December, 1842.
It would be interesting to know whether the Gedney parish register contains a record of this marriage. EDWARD PEACOCK.
[Is this possibly due to similarity in sound or idea to marriage in a shift? See 1^ S. vii. 17 and Index to 1".S. generally under ' Marriage in Chemise ' and Marriage in Smock.' Shirley Brooks is amonf the writers on the subject. Our friend MR. PEACOCK cannot be otherwise than acquainted with the dis- cussion that went on under these headings Infor niation on the subject is found in some editions of Brand, though we fail to trace it in the latest. An instance m 1874 is quoted at 8 th S. iv. 505.]
MORE CHURCH, SHROPSHIRE: MORTUARY INSCRIPTION AT CLUN. In a window ledge of the tower of More Church, Bishop's Castle
?Sn^ Ver V il S 8 ' a P? arentl y Bating about 1500-30, with the following arms (roughly blazoned), surmounted by a bishop's mitre- Party per pale : dexter, three roses seeded
and barbed ; sinister, between nine crosslets,
three, three, and three, two chevrons. A
hunting-horn under each chevron placed in
bend. On an inescutcheon, surmounted with
a bishop's mitre, two lions passant guardant ;
in chief, a Virgin and Child rising out of
clouds (the Virgin holds a cross in her sinister
hand). The motto is arranged as a kind of
rebus on a circle round the principal arms,
and reads, " Pro Deo et Ecclesia." The whole
design has a somewhat foreign, probably
Italian, look, and as the Virgin and Child on
the inescutcheon remind one of the arms of
the see of Salisbury, which was that held by
Cardinal Campeggio, and as Sir Thomas More
is known to have been a member of the More
family, now represented by Mr. R. Jasper
More, M.P., long established in More parish,
I cannot help thinking that the arms may be
the cardinal's. They in a way recall the
arms of Cuba, which date from about 1511.
Those sinister in the principal coat are, of
course, somewhat like the usual type of arms
modelled on those of Beauchamp, Earls of
Warwick.
In connexion with More Church I may mention the very large and extremely inter- esting library, now stored in a room in the tower, which was given to the parish in 32 Car. II., by Mr. it More, "for the instruc- tion of the clergy." It appears to have been collected about 1610, and throws a light on the question, lately discussed in *N. & Q.,' as to the libraries in country places in Shake- speare's time.
The theological books are mostly Roman
Catholic, and include works by Melchior
Jano, Bishop of the Canaries, and a violent
attack on 'The New Faith,' by M. Piscator,
printed m London in 1605, and also Baronius's
Annales Ecclesiastic!.' M. Piscator's book
is most elegantly printed and bound. The
collection seems never to have been examined
by any competent person, and certainly
deserves the attention of the Shropshire
Archaeological Society. The presses in which
t is stored are Jacobean.
Whilst on the subject of Shropshire I may lote that m the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, ->lun, is a tablet bearing a copy of the in- criptiori set up in 1618 over the tomb of its ounder, Henry Howard, Earl of Northamp- on, in the chapel of Dover Castle, which bears the words "Orate pro anima," &c. urely a very late instance in a Protestant hurch frequented by officials. H.
WORDSWORTH AND HENRY VAUGHAN. The
indebtedness of Wordsworth to Vaughan in
Ode on the Intimations of Immortality '
