stream at present. Three miles lower down, however, at Thixendale, a fairly copious spring breaks forth, which runs as a tiny beck as far as Raisthorpe, one mile, where it sinks. It reappears at Burdale, a mile and a half lower down the dale, where, joined by one or two springs from the high ground on the north, it feeds a pond which never dries up and never freezes. Thence the water, except in dry times, runs on the surface towards Fimber for about half a mile, and then finally disappears. We may, therefore, include Thixendale, Raisthorpe, and Burdale, as suitable and likely places for ancient settlements.

3. There are very few natural ponds on the wolds. The one at Burdale has already been mentioned, as also the one at the head of Water Dale. Both these are distinctly connected with springs. Apart from springs, however, there are a few which appear to maintain their water supply, not from the rainfall on their surface, but from a sort of natural drainage from the surrounding rock to a hollow formed in a deposit of clay. Such are the ponds at Huggate and Fimber. The name of the latter place is a misnomer. In all ancient documents it is spelt Finmere or Finimere, and took its name from the mere, or "mar," locally so called, which occupies the centre of the village. Sledmere is an instance of a similar derivation, though the mere has been filled up in recent times. In the list of Knights' Fees in Yorkshire, A.D. 1303, under the head of "Sledemer," Martinus atte Mar* is mentioned as holding two bovates.

We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that all the above-mentioned places, from their natural supply of water, formed suitable sites of settlement for the primitive inhabitants of the Wolds. The profusion of entrenchments in their immediate neighbourhood is thus, to some extent, accounted for.

The mere at Wetwang is also very ancient, having given rise, in the same list, to the name "Laurentius atte Mar."

A Forgotten Tudor Poet.

By MRS. CHARLOTTE C. STOPES.

HE reign of Queen Mary was short, and unmarked by brilliant literary names. But short as it was, there

is no sign that its character would have been changed by its being lengthened. Solemn and sombre thoughts of religious matters on the one side, quakings and fears on the other; general unrest, hesitation and uncertainty among the people; inglorious foreign policy, failure in all hopes, seemed the portion of the people and their queen. There was naught to stimulate the poetic vein, and there were no poets. It seemed as if there were a great back-draw just then, in preparation for the swelling wave that rolled on to make the high tide of Elizabethan literary glory. It is true that Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was born in 1536, and might be said to have developed during the reign. George Peele and Sir Walter Raleigh were born just the year before her accession, and Spenser, Lyly, Sydney, Fulke Greville, Thomas Lodge, George Chapman, and William Warner were born subjects to this queen. Yet not to her their glory, but to her more fortunate sister.

But the absence of great poets make minor ones more noteworthy. Hence, to the other antiquities brought forward in connection with the Tudor Exhibition, might have been added the life and verses of a young priest, Leonard Stopes. Having for other purposes been working up his life, I was told some time ago by Mr. Hazlitt that he had seen a broadside of his in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries. This, by the kindness of the librarian, I was permitted to copy, and to study the volume in which it is bound, in which I found a few other broadsides of the reign. It is on account of the verses one must give a short sketch of his life.

Sir Thomas Whyte, Alderman of London, founded the College of St. John at Oxford, May 29, 1555. It was arranged at first to hold "one President, and thirty Graduate or non-Graduate Scholars, or more or less." Sir Thomas Whyte dying soon after, increased his foundation by will. The first president

was Alexander Belsire; the first four "scholars" were Leonard Stopes, Will. Elye, Ralph Windon, and John Bavant.* "Leonard Stopes, Priest and Fellow of St. John's, sup. for B.A. 12 Oct., 1557, adm. 23 Oct., det. 1558, sup. for M.A. 25 Nov., lic. 5 Dec., inc. and disp. 21 Mar., 155, of St. John's."†

The rapidity of his advancement is explained in Gutch's edition of Wood's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, 1796, vol. ii., p. 133; "There being now a great scarcity of Masters in the University, it was decreed and appointed on the 25th June, 1556, that for the space of one year to come, all the Bachelors of Art, then in the University, might take the degree of Master at two years' standing complete. . . . There was also a great scarcity of divines, as it appears in our records for 1557 and 1558."

Either before, or early in his time of residence, he must have written and printed, as a broadside, the first poem, which might almost. entitle him, especially when connected with the after-events of his life, to be considered Mary's "Laureate ;" self-elected, it is true, and without stipend, or honour, or encouragement. That, nevertheless, proves all the more his good faith in praising a woman rarely praised.

An Ave Maria, in commendation of our most virtuous Queene. Imprinted at London, in Pater-noster Reaw, by Richard Lant.

HAILE

Haile Queene of England, of most worthy fame For virtue, for wisdom, for mercy and grace; Most firm in the faith: Defence of the same : Christ save her and keepe her, in every place. MARIE

Marie the mirrour of mercifulnesse

God of His goodnesse, hath lent to this lande: Our jewell, our joye, our Judeth doutlesse, The great Holofernes of hell to withstande.

FULL

Full well I may liken, and boldly compare

Her highnesse, to Hester, that vertuous Queene; The envious Hamon, to kyll, is her care,

And all wicked workers, to wede them out clene.

See Wood's History and Antiquities of the Colleges of Oxford, p. 538.

Boase, Registrum Universitatis Oxon, vol. i., p. 234.

WOMEN Women and widowes, with maidens and wiues, Of this blessed woman example may take In womanly wisdome, to leade wel their liues: All England is blessed for this woman's sake.

AND

And for that there is, suche godly behaviour
Specially tendyng, Gods worthy fame :
He through His power, and princely favour,
Hath blancked her foes, to their great shame.
BLESSED

Blessed be therefore, our Lorde God aboue :
And Marie our maistresse, our mercifulle Queene,
For unto this land, our Lorde for her loue

Hath of her mercy, most merciful bene.

Is

Is not her Highnesse, most worthy of prayse
And England much holden, her grace to comend
By whom, it hath pleased, our Lord many wayse
His bountefull blessyng, on us for to sende.

THE

The plentefull pittie, the faith and the grace
The mervaillous mekenes, and mercy also,
And other the vertues, that shine in her face
Doo saue us her subjected, in weale and in wo.
FRUYTE

Fruyte of her body, God graunt us to see

This Royalme to rule, in peace and in reste That loueyng as she is, to us may be ;

Who woulde us all, as our hertes can thinke best. OF

Of this may the good, be bolde as to say

She woulde God's glory, to flourish and spryng And her true subiectes, to walke in one way In unitie of faith, all us for to bryng.

Coventry, I could hardly have understood how anyone could honestly have written thus. But the womanhood in that face seemed to reveal a true soul buried under the hardness, engendered by years of oppression and conflict and disaster, and by her intense belief in the religion of her mother and her youth. Therefore to a young man, of the same religion, preparing for Holy Orders, ardent in faith like her, and willing to brave all for it, there is possible honesty and faith in this address to the Queen of his Country, thus associated with the Queen of Heaven.

"On December 5, 1558, Leonard Stopes took his degree of Master of Arts in Oxford; but in the year following, refusing to conform, he either resigned or was ejected, and going beyond the seas, to Douay in the first instance, he was ordained priest, much about the same time that Ralph Windon, another ejected fellow of that house, was also ordained. He returned to England on a religious mission with Ralph Windon, his fellow-student. They were taken and committed to custody in Wisbeach Castle, Cambridgeshire, where they, with others of the like character, endured a tedious imprisonment of many years, and were, therefore, accounted by those of their own persuasion as confessors. One of his fellow-students was Edmund Campion, afterwards the famous Jesuit; and one of his fellow-exiles was William Allen, of Oriel, the founder of the English College at Douay, and the noted English Cardinal. There is little known of his later life. From St. John's College, John Bavant, Ralph Wendon, Leonard Stopes and Henry Shaw, Masters of Arts and Fellows, were turned out or voluntarily left their places, all which, being made Catholic priests, were seized and imprisoned at Wisbeach in Cambridgeshire. What was the end of them, beyond exile, I know not.”*

Dodd seems in error, when, repeating this fact, he says of him, "refusing to conform, the 1st of Elizabeth he was deprived. Afterwards going over to the English College of Douay, he was ordained priest, and returned upon the mission." (Dodd's Lives of Elizabethan Clergymen, Book II., art. iv., p. 87, with note referring to Douay Diary.) But from Knox's transcript of the Douay Diary,

* Wood's Annals of Oxford University, ed. Gutch, 1796, Book I., p. 145.

Imprinted at London in Smithfielde by Richarde Lante.

If this is not by Leonard Stopes, it must have been by one of his party, who tried at first to combine loyalty and Romanism; there is no clue to another author.

I have not been able to find the date or place of his death, or whether he wrote any more poems. We have in our possession a beautiful Sarum Missal (once among the treasures of Messrs. Quaritch), which has his name written in a delicate clear hand on the right upper corner of the titlepage, "Leonardus Stopæus." This edition was that of 1555, published partly in Paris and partly in Old Sarum, and is a rare specimen of the printer's art. There are two volumes, which have been unfortunately rebound within this century in modern good morocco, and the margins cut too close.

Under the date of the Missal there is a scrawling signature "Jacobus Stopes," that of the brother of Leonard; and on the flyleaf and margins of the first part are many marginal notes in an Elizabethan hand, some of which are cut in the rebinding.

There are not many public records of his family, but as early as 1380 there were monks of the name in Britwell Priory in Oxfordshire. Richard Stopes was probably an uncle of Leonard's. Another of the name, a senior, yet a contemporary, resembling him in his attachment to the old faith, might have been his uncle or elder brother; Robert Stopes, the prebendary of Sneating, called by Strype, in error, John.

"Stopes, or Stoppes, Robert, sup. for B.A. 30 May, 1537, mar. 1537-8, adm. 8 April, det. 1539, sup. for M.A. May, 1545, lic. 1545, inc. 8 Feb., 1545-6." (Boase, Reg. Univ. Oxford, vol. i., p. 188.)

"Prebendaries of St. Paul's. . . . Robert Stopes, A. M. 10th Oct., 1556, vice John Wymmesley, deceased, 28th Dec., 1559. David Pade, vice Stopes, deceased. (Register, Bonner, G. 468.)

"The visitation of St. Paul's began on 11th August, 1559. The Commissioners sat at St. Paul's again on November 3. Then Richard Marshall, Will Murmure, John Murren, John Stopes, not appearing, and not satisfying the Royal Commission, they pronounced them contumacious, and deprived them of their prebends by sentence definitive." (Strype's Annals of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. 253.)

In December 7, 1521, 13 Henry VIII., among the "Batchelors of Divinity" in St. Bernard's College, Oxford, is entered "Richard Stoppys or Stopes," afterwards Abbot of Meaux or Melsa, in Yorkshire.*

Boase, Registrum Universitatis Oxon, vol. i., p. 119: p. 119: "Richard Stopys, Cistercian, sup. for B.D. 9 May, 1521, adm. to oppose, 9 July, B.D. 7 Dec." And in the Athena Oxoniensis, "Batchelors of Divinity, 7th December, 1521, 13 Hen. VIII. Richard Stopys or Stopes, Abbot of Meaux or Melsa, in Yorkshire, of the Cistercian Order, now studying in St. Bernard's College."

The Chronica de Melsa, written by Thomas Burton, the Abbot, gives the history from the foundation of the Abbey, in the deanery of Holderness, and the archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire, in 1150, and gives the lives of the Abbots down to 1406. This has been edited and printed by Mr. Bond, of the British Museum. In Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. v., p. 388, we find that by the 26th Henry VIII. "Richard Stolpes was Abbot." He returned the "Valor Ecclesiasticus" of the Abbey to Henry as £299 6s. 41d., after all expenses paid. This duty seemed to have been too much for him, for in the 31st Henry VIII. it was not he, but Richard Draper, who received the retiring annual pension of £40, when each of the Presbyters received £6.

Leonard Stopes, poet and priest, was probably of the Hertfordshire branch of the family. On March 21, 1546-47,† we have an entry of the marriage of his brother, James Stoppys or Stopes, to Margery Nuce, of the city of London. The Newces had made their money as goldsmiths, and settled in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, where they became distinguished. The earliest parish * Wood's Fasti, B. I. 56.

+ See Chester's Marriage Licenses of the City of London,