cavalry at the battle of Newbury, and there, 'weary of the times,' was slain in the first encounter. (Whitelock's Memorials.) The vacancy thus occasioned was not filled up until the autumn of 1645, when among the new membersRecruiters,' as Anthony Wood and the Royalists called them—the name of William Stephens, LL.D., stands on the list of the Long Parliament. (See Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 394.)

Falkland's colleague in the representation of the borough of Newport was Sir Henry Worsley, Bart., who in 1642 presented a petition to the House of Commons, desiring leave to be discharged from his duty in Parliament. No notice seems to have been taken of this petition, as in 1645 Sir Henry Worsley is found on the list of the Long Parliament as member for Newport, I. W. The records of the Corporation of that borough may be able to furnish the name of the candidates against whom this somewhat riotous Recorder was pitted. Turbulent as were the election proceedings of this luminary of the law, I take some interest in Mr. Stephens from the fact that he was the purchaser of the Manor of Bowcombe in Carisbrooke, having bought that estate of Sir Henry Knowles. The family of Stephens, who held considerable property in the parish of Milton near Southampton, and at Lymington, was introduced into this island by the marriage of Richard, the father of William Stephens, with the daughter of Robert Doleman of Norris in the parish of Whippingham. Richard's son, William, though entered at the Middle Temple, practised as a civilian, and was sometimes styled of Doctors' Commons. His first preferment was recorder of Newport. In 1642 Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who had been selected by the Parliament as Governor of the Island in the place of the Earl of Portland, appointed Stephens steward and bailiff of the Isle of Wight, and in 1644 Woodward and Verderer of the New Forest.

In an article in the Vectis Magazine, 1822, p. 72, it is stated, that William Stephens purchased the Manor of Barton for £2,000, and that of Bowcombe for £8,000, both in this island.' The Bowcombe estate remained in the hands of the descendants of this William Stephens till it was purchased by Mr. Blachford. I trust to be able hereafter to

give a slight account of the descendants of this William Stephens, who for many years were closely connected with the parish of Carisbrooke as proprietors of the fair vale of Bowcombe. (See vol. i. pp. 649-665.)

January 17, 1885.

W. STEPHENS, LL. D., MEMBER FOR NEWPORT, A. D. 1645.

THE desire has been expressed that I should give my authority for stating that Lord Falkland was replaced in the representation of Newport by Mr. Stephens of Bowcombe Manor. The evidence is as follows, and I hope will be thought to substantiate my assertion.

In Worsley's History of the Isle of Wight, Appendix, No. xli, is a list of the members returned to Parliament from the three boroughs of the Isle of Wight from A.D. 1585 to 1780. Under the heading of Newport, 16th Charles I, 1640, appears this entry, Will. Stephens, Esq., elected vice Lord Falkland vacating in 1645.'

Adjoined to volume ii. of Mr. Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell is a list of the Long Parliament, which is very useful to those who wish to know the names of the members of the 'most remarkable Parliament that ever sat.' On page 394 of that volume will be found 'Stephens William, LL.D.' as sitting for Newport Wight.' An asterisk is prefixed to his name, which denotes that he was a 'recruiter,' a word explained in the preceding page.

In the Journals of the House of Lords, Nov. 24, 1645, is a letter from the freeholders of Newport, I. W., to the Speaker of the House of Commons, complaining of the conduct of Mr. Stephens, one of the candidates at the late election for the borough. The grounds of that complaint need not here. be stated, as the extract from the calendar of the MSS. of the House of Lords appears in the preceding letter.

190 W. STEPHENS, LL.D., MEMBER FOR NEWPORT.

It is of course possible that Mr. Stephens was in consequence unseated upon their petition. This may account for his absence from your published list, which I was not aware till now, 'was furnished by Mr. Clifford, and obtained by him from the official records of the House of Commons.'

The result of the petition is not mentioned, nor am I aware of any notice of it except in the Journals of the House of Lords, published in the Sixth Report of the Commissioners

of Historical MSS.

The difficulty about Barton and Bowcombe is easily solved. W. Stephens was the purchaser of both the Manor of Barton, for which he gave £2,000, and also of Bowcombe, for which he gave £8,000, as appears from a memoir of him, published in the Vectis Magazine, 1822, p. 72. There are several blunders in this short memoir, but it has, along with the monument in Carisbrooke Church and certain entries in the Carisbrooke Registers, supplied all the information which I can gather about a family which once held so good a position in the Isle of Wight.

About the beginning of the eighteenth century William Stephens, who had married a daughter of Sir Richard Newdegate, obtained through the influence of Colonel Horsey a grant of land in South Carolina, and returning from thence to England set out again for Georgia, where he lived in penury the remainder of his life, though considered the only man of knowledge in the Colony.' It would be interesting to know if there were any descendants of this Isle of Wight family still living in the State of Georgia. During the Civil War in the United States a certain Alexander Stephens, it will be recollected, held high office under the Confederate Government. The name of Stephens is common both in England and America, and it may be a matter of some difficulty to trace the descendants of this William Stephens. The William who was the grandson of the civilian of Doctors' Commons and member of the Long Parliament, was born at Bowcombe, Jan. 28, 1671, and before he left for America, sat as member for Newport in all Queen Anne's Parliaments as also in the first Parliament of George I.

It is mentioned in the memoir that William, the son of Dr. Pittis, was this William Stephens' cousin and school

fellow at Winchester College. I presume that this William Pittis, who was afterwards of New College, Oxford, was an ancestor of the present well-known and highly respected family bearing that name. If so, some of that family may have documents which would throw light upon the Stephenses who for three generations were members for Newport.

I am unable to say at present how, and why, the Marquis of Bute came by his title of Viscount Mountjoy. I have never had in my possession that book, which, when it lay open upon the table at 'Evergreens,' the country house of Major Ponto, so stirred the bile of Mr. Snob-'the inevitable, abominable, maniacal, absurd, disgusting Peerage.' In spite of Mr. Thackeray's fierce invectives, a peerage book has its uses.

When I began writing these letters to your journal, as an old peerage book would suit my purpose, I asked a friend in London to buy me a second-hand Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. To my surprise I found that even in these democratic days second-hand peerages were in so great demand, that I must pay for such a copy a price which I declined to give.

The following extract from Worsley (Hist. I. W. p. 153) may be of interest. Newport has given title to four Earls -the first, Lord Mountjoy, natural son of the Earl of Devonshire, created by Charles I, in the fourth year of his reign, Baron of Thurlston and Earl of Newport; he died A.D. 1665, and was succeeded by George Blount, his son and heir; he dying unmarried, A. D. 1676, the title devolved on his brother Charles, who did not survive him above a year, and was succeeded by his brother Henry, who dying unmarried, A. D. 1679, the title became extinct. Lord Windsor was also Baron Newport in the reign of Queen Anne.'

January 9, 1886.

6

MAJESTY IN MISERY.-A POEM WRITTEN BY CHARLES I IN CARISBROOKE CASTLE.

It is pleasant to think that Charles I, who was a lover of books, was in his dreary captivity in Carisbrooke Castle solaced by what Christopher Marlowe, the dramatist, calls 'infinite riches in a little room,' for the King had about him his small library of 'books both pure and good.' 'In the pleasing narrative which the Honourable Thomas Herbert has left of that affair,' as Mr. Carlyle has condescended to say of the memoir of that faithful servant of the Crown, we read as follows: His Majesty gave Mr. Herbert the charge of his books, of which the King had a catalogue, and from time to time he brought unto him such as he was pleased to call for. The Sacred Scriptures was the book he most delighted in; and often read in Bishop Andrew's Sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Dr. Hammond's Works, Villalpandus upon Ezekiel, &c., Laud's Paraphrase on King David's Psalms, Herbert's Divine Poems, and also Godfrey of Bulloigne, writ in Italian by Torquato Tasso, and done into English heroic verse by W. Fairfax, a poem his Majesty much commended, as he did also Ariosto by Sir John Harrington, Spenser's Faery Queen, and the like, for alleviating his spirits after serious studies. And at this time it was (as is presumed) he composed his book called Suspiria Regalia, published soon after his death, and entitled The King's Portraiture in his solitude and sufferings, which MS. Mr. Herbert found among those books which his Majesty was pleased to give him, those excepted which he bequeathed to his children. In many of his books he delighted himself with the motto, "Dum spiro spero," which he wrote frequently as the emblem of his hopes as well as endeavours for a happy agreement with his Parliament.'

When on his last night Charles arranged with Herbert about the distribution of his favourite books, his Bible with annotations in his own hand was to be kept for the Prince