girls, thereby. The building was completed by the end of the year, and was found to accommodate all the boys well, including those hitherto attending the School of Industry, and from that time, this name was dropped,—though not the character it was meant to convey—and it has since been always known as "the Girls' School Sonning." The cost of the new Boys' School was] £200, and the funds to meet it were derived, partly from a bequest by the late Lady Sidmouth, partly by a sum still remaining in the Savings' Bank, and partly by the contributions of friends, a fourth part being borrowed, and paid off in due time without any difficulty. The boys still met on Sundays in their room at the Girls' School, as being much nearer the Church, and more convenient to the teachers. There is, I believe, an old saying, or at least a very common idea, that when once people begin to meddle with brick and mortar they never find themselves quite free from such entanglements long together. However this may be, and of course there are exceptions to every rule, certain it is, that so soon as the year 1846, we had to begin again. For after the consecration of All Saints' Chapel of Ease in 1842, the Schools belonging to that part of the Liberty of Eye and Dunsden attached to it, could no longer be effectually carried on in the little cottage kitchen at Binfield Heath on week days, and in one a little larger, in Tagg Lane, on Sundays. We therefore, as soon as we could manage it, built a School, with a comfortable home for the mistress, at Dunsden Green. It was to be, as before, a mixed School, to include all children too old for the Infant School at Playhatch, and too distant from Sonning, whither however, all the elder boys were required to attend if possible. This School was well situated, and commanded a beautiful view ; and was so superior in all respects to anything of the school kind hitherto seen in that rather wild and inaccessible country, that we thought it would amply provide for all Scholars likely to go there. It was used for the first time on Sunday, December 20, 1846, when we assembled the All Saints' Sunday School there, and went to Church with them. P.M. SONNING. BAPTISMS. February 9, (privately) Ernest Frederick, son of Edward and Caroline Allnatt. BURIALS. SONNING CHURCH. February 3, Elizabeth Biles, of S. Giles', Reading, aged 77. ALL SAINTS' CHURCH. February 22, Mary Ann Preston, aged 73. SONNING. : Church Services. HOLY WEEK. Daily 11 o'clock in the morning. 7 o'clock in the evening. ALL SAINTS'. Daily 11 o'clock in the morning, and on Good Friday at 7 in the evening. SONNING. EASTER SUNDAY. 8 o'clock in the morning, Holy Communion. II o'clock, Morning Service with Holy Communion. 3 o'clock, Afternoon Service. half-past 6 o'clock, Evening Service. The Sunday Evening Service at Sonning Church, will be continued after Easter. The other services will be as usual. WOODLEY COAL CLUB. At the request of several of the subscribers, the time of payment is extended for one month. Subscriptions will be received on Monday, November 6th. The coals will not be distributed till the end of November or beginning of December. QUEEN ISABELLA OF VALOIS AT SONNING. Continued. The remainder of the history of Isabella is shortly given. She refused all Henry's overtures to her to bestow her hand on his son the Prince of Wales, who seems to have really loved her, and she did not marry again until six years after her return to France, when she accepted her cousin the Duke of Orleans, the most accomplished Prince in Europe. At the age of 22, in the bloom of youth and sunshine of happiness, Isabella died after the birth of her first child, September 13, 1410. Her husband was taken prisoner at Agincourt, by Richard Waller, ancestor of the poet Edmund Waller, who was allowed, in consequence, to bear as his crest, the arms of France on a shield, hung on an oak tree, which crest is still borne by his descendants. The Duke was kept 23 years prisoner in England, by the very man who had been so often refused by Isabella, a circumstance perhaps not forgotten by Henry V. The following touching lines are part of a lyric written by the Duke of Orleans, in memory of his lovely young wife. At the time of the conquest, the Bishops of Salisbury held the Manor of Sonning, and the Manor House was for some centuries after their occasional residence. The manor was exchanged with the Crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, so that no Bishops have lived at Sonning since the latter end of the XVIth century. But portions of the old house remained standing till the year 1800. The house, or palace, stood on the mound immediately facing the Vicarage, in what is now Holme Park. Every one remembers the large old ash tree, just on one side of the mound, which seemed to spread its arms over it, and which fell on a certain Saturday, some years ago. Close to this withered ash stood the Bishop's Palace. No trace but one of the old house now remains, and that not a very pleasant one. What is now a stagnant pool by the towing path, near the lock, was the old fish-pond belonging to the Palace; it was a very elaborate structure, being cased with brick, with an inlet and an outlet to the river. It must have been a dreary Christmas that the little Queen spent at Sonning, and no doubt her heart was often sore and heavy, thinking of the fate of the gay and handsome Prince, who, whatever his faults as a king might have been, was always kind and gentle and loving to her. It is strange to think that while much has changed so entirely since Queen Isabella was at Sonning, nearly five centuries ago, some things on which her eyes looked then, we still see there. Not only was the outward aspect of nature in many respects the same; not only did the silver Thames flow gently then as now, through broad rich meadow lands, with hanging woods here and there on its banks, but also part of the Church was the same then as now. She must have looked on the same South Aisle, with the beautiful tracery of the three-light windows, and there was the same faced flint-work on the walls outside. The nave and chancel were probably being built while she was there; and though it is supposed from remains that have been discovered that the Church was longer both at the east and west ends, than it is now, and though probably the chapel of St. Sarac, of which tradition speaks, at the east end, was then in existence, still the Church must have presented something of the same external appearance that it does now. It may be too great a stretch to imagine that the yew tree in the Churchyard is as much as five hundred years old, though yews do live as long. But if that one was not in existence as a young tree then, there was probably another on or near the spot, as besides the explanation given in a former number of the Magazine of the fact of yew trees being always planted in churchyards (that as they were long lived, and evergreen, they were the fittest types of immortality;) it is said there was a practical reason for it, namely, that owing to the yews being used to make the long-bows, which were the universal weapons of Englishmen before the discovery of gunpowder, they were so generally destroyed that people took to planting them in churchyards to preserve them, because there they were safe from being touched. In Sonning village there is a memorial of Isabella's unfortunate husband, in the sign of the "White Hart." This was the well-known badge of Richard, and his popularity in the early part of his reign, which he in a great measure owed to what Dean Stanley calls his "fatal and (as believed at the time) unparalleled beauty," caused it to be very frequently adopted as an inn sign throughout the country. But while we can thus trace a resemblance in the outward appearance of some things, then and now, how much more apparent are the differences! How far removed in many ways were those times from these! It was only a few years before the time of which we are writing, that Wycliffe first gave the people a translation of the Bible in the English language. The Bible had been a sealed book to the poor, and to most of the rich until then, and even after Wycliffe had translated it into English, as the art of printing was unknown, very few copies comparatively could be had. Besides the greater mental and spiritual darkness of those times, there was a vast difference in the social condition of the people. The lower orders in the towns had more freedom, but the labouring poor were only just beginning to assert their independence. Even then they were forced to work for certain wages, and not allowed to leave their homes or their work; the penalty of so doing was fifteen days imprisonment, and an F branded on the forehead. On the other hand the rate of wages was higher than in the present day, which fact is partly to be accounted for by the way in which the country had been drained of men in the long wars with France, and the consequent scarcity of able-bodied labourers. One penny of their money represented two shillings of ours; the ordinary pay for harvest work was three-pence a day without food, being equal to six shillings now. But though we must allow that in this respect they were better off than the agricultural poor of the southern and midland counties are now; and though all who take a serious interest in the welfare of the labouring classes, wish much to see an increase of material prosperity in many parts of the country; still no material advantages can compensate for the drawbacks of a closed Bible and an enslaved people. It is only a free and a God-fearing nation that can be a really prosperous one; and though merely having the Bible will not make us religious, we cannot fear God if we have no means of learning about Him. Privately. Feb. 24, James Joseph, son of William and Phoebe Tillin. Mar. 5, George Alfred, son of George and Mary Burt. Mar. 12, Emma Jane, daughter of James and Ellen Webb. Feb. 26, Joseph Hicks, of Woodley, aged 70. Feb. 26, Elizabeth Holloway, of Playhatch, aged 78. |