great-uncle (who, however, was only twenty odd years his senior), Sir Thomas Gorges, together with his wife, the Marchioness of and valued courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and Northampton, who were both intimate friends the builders and owners of Longford Castle, co. Wilts, the present home of the Earls of Radnor.

Sir Ferdinando, as lord of the manor of Birdcombe, co. Somerset, by descent, was the second of the two sons of Edward Gorges, squire of Wraxall, co. Somerset (descendant through the female line of a famous Norman family prior to 1066), by his wife Cicely, daughter of William Lygon, of Madresfield, co. Worcester (ancestor of the present Earl Beauchamp). Born in the year 1566, he died at the advanced age of eighty-one on 14 May, 1647, and was buried at Long Ashton, near Bristol, the beautiful seat of the Smythe family. At the age of twenty-five he was knighted at Rouen in 1591, and became a member of Parliament for Cardigan in 1592. Sir Ferdinando was married four times.

den's Memorials of Old Northamptonshire '-Reviews and Magazines-Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

Hotes.

SIR FERDINANDO GORGES, LORD
PALATINE OF MAINE.

SIR FERDINANDO GORGES was one of that remarkable body of men who existed in a period of English history which is worthy of notice not only in itself, covering as it does the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, King James I., and King Charles I., but for the number of illustrious individuals who assisted in adding more pages to the intellectual and progres sive records of what is now the British Empire than in any other cycle of years since the Norman Conquest.

The subject of this brief sketch was the friend and companion of such men as Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Sir Robert and Sir William Cecil (Lords Salisbury and Burleigh respectively), Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Hawkins, and other shining lights that came and went as meteors across the horizon of British history, but, unlike those celestial wanderers, leaving an imperishable track behind.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, like the majority of notable men of those days, was both soldier and sailor in one, and blessed with a large amount of Court influence, as most of the Gorges family at this time were closely connected with Court life, especially so his

(Capt. Robert Gorges, Col. John Gorges, George Gorges, Capt. Thomas Gorges, and Ellen and Honoria Gorges), was Anne, daughter of Edward Bell, Esq., of Writtle, co. Essex, and of Newland, co. Gloucester. They were married at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, on 24 February, 1589. (She was buried in St. Sepulchre's, London, 6 August, 1620.) His second wife was Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Fulford, and widow of Thomas Achim, of Hall, co. Cornwall, Esq.; she died in 1623. Four years after this lady's decease he married as his third wife, at Ladock, co. Cornwall, 6 December, 1627, Elizabeth, daughter of Tristram Gorges, the widow, twice over, of Edward Courtney, and John Blythe of Ladock. She did not, however, live long, for on 28 September, 1629, he was again married at the family church of Wraxall to his fourth wife, who was Elizabeth, daughter of the Sir Thomas Gorges already mentioned, and widow of Sir Hugh Smythe, Knt., of Long Ashton, near Bristol, the entry in the register of Wraxall Church being as follows: "Sr Furdinando Gorg de Kinterberrye (co. Devon), Knight, and Madam Elizabeth Smyth de Long Aiston (co. Somersette), W., 28 Sept., 1629." She survived her husband twelve years, dying in 1659. He had no issue by his last three wives.

We find young Ferdinando Gorges at the age of twenty-one, before his first marriage, as a prisoner in Spain, having been one of the few Englishmen captured by a ship of the Spanish Armada; but it was not long

before he was released from this bondage by an exchange of prisoners, and in September of the following year he was appointed to the command of 135 soldiers, accompanied by Sir John Burgh, Knt., and Sir Nicholas Parker, Knt., each being in command of a similar number of men, to act as reinforcements for the army of Henry IV. of France, which were provided by our Queen Elizabeth. In 1591 he is with John Dytcher and John Gorynge, as a captain of the Sussex levies, patrolling the south coast for any signs of an enemy; and this year also he was summoned to London and consulted as to a means of defence for Pendennis Castle, which he strongly fortified under great difficulties, especially in getting the money to pay for the work of such building. He then proceeded on a special mission to Normandy, and was soon afterwards knighted. Proceeding to the Low Countries, he was recalled to England with his men in 1596, and a royal patent was immediately issued making and confirming him captain and keeper of the important castle and fort at Plymouth, and also captain of St. Nicholas Isle, "with all the fees, wages, &c., of such offices, to be taken out of the Customs upon the transportation of pilchards from counties Devon and Cornwall," also authorizing him ". muster and call together the militia of Devonshire, in defence of the fort when needed."

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During August of this year he fell seriously ill; and in the following September Sir Robert Cecil was sent by the queen from London to visit him at Dartmouth, and also to inspect the plans and arrangements Sir Ferdinando had made for the defence of Plymouth and Dartmouth. There are two entries in the State Papers relating to Plymouth Fort at this time-under date 18 February, 1597 Account of ordnance, powder, shot, and other munition required by Sir Ferdinando Gorges for the supply of the New Fort at Plymouth and St. Nicholas Isle, total 1,611. 8s. 10d."; and again on 9 March, 1597: "There will not be enough of the revenues of Devon and Cornwall due at Lady Day to satisfy the half year's pay due to Sir Ferdinando Gorges."

In June, 1597, Sir Ferdinando Gorges accompanied (together with Lord Thomas Howard, Vice-Admiral, Lord Mountjoy, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Vere, and Sir George Carew) the Earl of Essex on what is known as the famous "Islands Voyage," or expedition to the Azores, during which time he commanded the ships Dreadnought and Warspite. During his absence on this remark

able voyage, an account of which was written by Sir Walter Raleigh, he left, with the queen's consent, his elder brother, Capt. Edward Gorges, of Wraxall, in his place as Captain of Plymouth Fort and the Isle of St. Nicholas. On his return to England he again proceeded, under the command of the Earl of Essex, to Ireland to quell the rebellion raised there by the Earl of Tyrone; and once more returned to England to take up his duties again as Governor of Plymouth, where, in conjunction with the Earl of Bath and Sir William Courtenay, a muster of 6,000 Devonshire men was made in consequence of a fear of invasion.

Then came the revolt, imprisonment, trial, and execution of the Earl of Essex, with whom, unfortunately, Sir Ferdinando's name was mixed up. There is in the British Museum a very curious MS. entitled 'A Defence of Sir Ferdinando Gorges against a Charge of having betrayed the Earl of Essex.' The following, taken from the Carew MS., is worth recording here. Under date of March, 1601, Sir Robert Cecil wrote to Sir George Carew :—

"The 19th February the Earl (of Essex) was arraigned (together with Southampton) in Westminster Hall before 25 Peers. The Lord Treasurer (Buckhurst) sitting as Lord Steward. At the bar the Earl laboured to extenuate his fault by denying that he ever meant any harm to her Majesty's person, and by pretending that he took arms principally to save himself from my Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh, who (he gave out) should have murdered him in his house on Saturday have removed me with some others from the Queen, night. He pretended also an intention he had to as one who would sell the Kingdom of England to the Infant of Spain, with such other hyperbolical inventions. But before he went out of the Hall, when he saw himself condemned and found Sir Davers, and Sir Christopher Blunt had confessed John Davys, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir Charles all the conferences that were held at Drury House by his directions for the surprising of the Queen and the Tower, which argued a premeditated treason (which he laboured to have had it proved, flying into the City for fear of being committed only a sudden putting himself into strength, and overnight, when the Lords sent for him, which upon my faith to you, to whom I will not lie, was only to have reproved him for his unlawful assemblies, and to have wished him to leave the City and retire into the country), he then break out to divers gentlemen in these words, that his confederates who now accuse him had been principal inciters to him, and not he to them, even ever since August last, to work access to the Queen with force."""

The result of this trial of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the queen s favourite, does not appear to have affected the career of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, for he immediately returned to his important charge at Plymouth. On the accession of James I. in 1603 we find

DEAN DONNE AND THE DONNES OF NORFOLK. -Dr. Jessopp in his 'Life of Dr. Donne' (1897, p. 225, Appendix B) says:

"My belief is that neither of Dr. Donne's sons had any male offspring. It is hardly conceivable that if at the end of the seventeenth century any descendants of the Dean entitled to perpetuate his illustrious name had been still living, the fact should have remained undiscovered down to our own time." Now Dean Donne died 31 March, 1631, and in a pedigree given in 'Letters of Lady Hesketh to the Rev. John Johnson' (1901), by Mrs. Catharine Bodham Johnson (née Donne), the first record runs :

"Roger Donne, of Ludham, Norfolk, Gent., born April 17th, 1675, died Nov. 9th, 1722, son of Wm. Donne of Letheringsett, Norfolk, born 1645, died 1684, descended from Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's." The pedigree from which the above is an extract is copied from one made by the Heralds' College for the poet Cowper in 1792, and Cowper always spoke of the Dean as an ancestor. But that the later Norfolk Donnes are actually descended from the Dean remains to be proved, and, so far, only rests on a persistent family tradition. Some writerson what authority I know not-state that the Dean on his father's side was sprung from an ancient knightly family of Wales, "the Dwnns of Dwynn in Radnorshire," says Dr. Jessopp; and I have been informed by one of the family that the arms of a certain Owen Dwn in the fifteenth century are identical with those of the Norfolk Donnes, viz., Quarterly, 1 and 4, Azure, a wolf salient argent; 2 and 3, Gules, a chevron ermine between three birds. But Mr. Fox-Davies asserts that no authority for the use of these bearings has been established at the College

of Arms.

The name Donne has from very early times been common in Norfolk: thus in the fourteenth century I find David Donne, a landowner at Rougham in 1321; John le Donne, of the same place, in 1346; and John Donne, instituted to Matlask, with Branweth, York, by the prior and convent of Merton, 24 October, 1386. I do not find such a place as Branweth, but quote from Mr. Walter Rye's 'Rough Materials for the History of the Hundred of North Erpingham, Norfolk,'

p. 619.

Sir John Fastolf, writing to John Paston, 3 July, 1459, refers somewhat spitefully to a Laurence Donne, in connexion with the church of St. Olave (Southwark, no doubt); and Sir John Paston, writing 25 August, 1478, complains that one Donne had falsely testified that the Duke of Suffolk was patron of Fastolf's benefice of Drayton, near Norwich.

In my casual seeking I have not come across any Donnes in Norfolk in the sixteenth century, but they emerge again in the seventeenth, and I find Daniel Donne, rector of Ickburgh, 1626; of Caldecote, 1636; and, I presume, this same Daniel, vicar of Besthorpe, 1630-46. In 1685 died Thomas Donne, of Holt, at the age of seventy, as is recorded on his memorial in the dilapidated church of St. Peter, Hungate, in Norwich.

In 1705 Thomas Donne was presented to the rectory of Sculthorpe by Robert Donne, Gent.; and Thomas Donne, probably the same, was rector of South Creake from 1710 to 1739, to which the presentation was also made by a Robert Donne. In 1732 we find Roger Donne, brother of Cowper's mother, rector of Catfield; he died 13 July, 1773.

It is noticeable how, from before Chaucer's time, members of the Donne family have ranked amongst the clergy of Norfolk.

I have no pretensions to be a student of genealogy, but send these loosely connected notes in the hope of eliciting further information.

The origin of the name Donne seems to be rather obscure; Bardsley does not mention it. JAMES HOOPER.

Norwich.

a

The

MR. LANG AND HOMER.-In the long controversy respecting the authorship of the Homeric poems, Mr. Lang's 'Homer and the Epic,' which appeared about ten years ago, occupies Athenæum reviewer remarked that it was not very important place. quite clear whether he was a chorizont in the matter of the two great poems traditionally ascribed to that name; and the author acknowledged, in answer, that he was not depended upon whether they were of nearly clear on that point himself, as it really the same date. That the 'Odyssey' is somewhat later than the Iliad' has been almost universally held; and I may here call attention to an able little work by Miss A. M. Clerke, 'Familiar Studies in Homer,' which appeared in 1892, and has some thoughtful remarks on this point. The first impression made on reading Mr. Lang's book is that he is not a chorizont; but he speaks ambiguously throughout. At p. 3, for instance, we read:

we would lose Homer and keep the rest of Greek "If we were offered the unhappy choice whether poetry, or keep the rest and lose Homer, there could be little doubt as to our choice. We would rescue the Iliad and the Odyssey."

The last sentence would lead one to infer that both were by Homer. But the inadvertent expression in the first sentence is very amusing, equivalent to "Shall we lose A. and