paper any more than I am myself. I feel that, in discussing the subject, we are groping in the dark, but I cannot help thinking that the knowledge we are daily getting of the religions of the world generally will enable us shortly to see the question less dimly; and I shall feel quite contented to think that I may have been instrumental, through this paper, in drawing attention to subjects which have not usually been brought much in contact, and that some new ideas may result. That this subject is intimately connected with the history of mankind, the affinity of races, their customs and ceremonies, I think there can be no doubt. HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE CRADLE OF HENRY V. BY WILLIAM WATKINS OLD, Esq., Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. THE venerable relic which is the subject of this paper is a wooden cot (or cradle, as it has been called) of unquestionable antiquity, traditionally said to have been the cradle of the hero of Agincourt, the glory of Monmouth, Henry V. Lambarde, in his “Topographical Dictionary," speaking of the destruction of Monmouth Castle in the thirteenth century, writes: "Thus the glorie of Monmouth had cleane perished, ne had it pleased God longe after in that place to give life to the noble King Hen. V.” (“Alphabetical Description of the Chief Places in England and Wales," by William Lambarde, first published in 1730). It may befit me, therefore, as an inhabitant of this town, to use my endeavour to preserve from perishing the memory of an object which tradition has associated with him who has given undying fame to my place of residence, and which for a period of many years has been lost to us. Tradition, of course, is not evidence. But where direct testimony is not to be obtained, and in the absence of authoritative contradiction, it must be accepted as of a certain weight and worth. It will generally be found to be built upon a substratum of fact, and although, in process of time, the groundwork is almost invariably distorted, it is rarely destroyed. Should there be nothing, then, but tradition to link this rare example of mediæval furniture with the House of Plantagenet and the town of Monmouth, it would not, I opine, be beneath the notice of those whose professed aim is to classify the stores of the past and to preserve everything connected with those of our forefathers whose history is an honour to our land. I may be allowed to observe, in the first place, that specimens of beds and cradles prior to the sixteenth century are very rare; and I believe the cot in question is a unique example of such an object claiming to belong to the fourteenth century. This is the more extraordinary, inasmuch as such articles of domestic use do not wear out very quickly, being usually made of hard wood, unexposed to weather or violence; and in the Middle Ages they were deemed of such value as to be often specially mentioned in the wills of people of quality. No trace exists of "my new bed of red velvet embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths," which the mother of Richard II. left to her "dear son the king." The tattered remains of the old bed, called the bed of Henry V., which Coxe mentions in his history of Monmouthshire as having been long exhibited at the mansion of Courtfield, have vanished and left "not a rack behind.” What has become of the "little cradille of tre in a frame coueryd and painted with fyne golde and devises, of a yerd and a quarter longe, and in bred xxij inches," which is ordered in a manuscript of "Ceremonies and Services in Court," temp. Henry VII.? or, still more, of the "gret cradille of estat, contenynge in length v foot and half, in bred ij foot and a half, coueryd in clothe of gold," of the same order-book? (" Antiquarian Repertory,” vol. i., p. 336.) Rich coverlids were provided for the above; as also we find "a pane and a head shete for ye cradell of the same sute, both furred with mynever," in an inventory of Reginald de la Pole, in the fifteenth century (Turner's "Domestic Architecture in England, from Rich. II. to Hen. VIII.," 1859, vol. iii., p. 106). But of all such things, however treasured in their day, not a vestige has come down to us, except the venerable claimant which is the subject of this essay. A false reputation for antiquity is so common that it makes one regard every claim with distrust. I am told that the "fourteenth-century funeral pall," lent by the Fishmongers' Company to the Exhibition of Art Needlework in 1873, which was stated to have been used at the obsequies of Sir William Walworth in the time of Richard II., has since been proved, by the armorial bearings on it, to be of at least two centuries later date. The history of Edward's Tower in Carnarvon Castle is a parallel instance which will occur to every archæologist. The relic of which I am treating may, in like manner, be discovered by some future iconoclast to be an impostor; but, meanwhile, I will bring forward and record such claims as it has, and will adduce no opinion without producing my authority for the same. The so-called cradle of Henry V., of which I submit a representation, is different in form from any of the antique cradles I have met with, delineated in illuminated MSS. It is, in fact, a cot, and not a cradle. It belongs rather to the lecti pensiles mentioned by Joannes Alstorphius in his "Dissertatio Philologia de Lectis Veterum," which cradle-beds are said by Mercurialis, in his work, "De Arte Gymnastica," to have been invented by the Bithynian physician, Asclepiades ("De lecti pensilis, cunarum, ac navis gestationem facultatibus. Qui primo lectulos pensiles excogitavit Asclepiades." -Mercuriali De Arte Gymnastica). Ducange, in his Glossary, speaks of cradles suspended by cords, which would more resemble the cot under consideration. But there is one thing in common with them all-the peculiarity of an arrangement for a crossed band to prevent the child from tumbling out. This may be noticed in the twelfth-century bas-relief from the cathedral of Chartres, in Willemin's "Monuments Français Inédits" (planche 74, meubles du xiime siècle), “ Berceau garni de ses sangles croisées, précaution usitée encore dans quelques contrées et qui avait pour but d'empêcher l'enfant de tomber;" and again in the fifteenth-century cradle, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque du Roi (No. 6896), "Le petit bers ou berceau garni de ses bandelettes pour preserver l'enfant des dangers d'une chute." In my drawing of the cradle of Henry V., the openings for the lacing of the band appear, three on each side, while at the base are small holes through which a cord passes across the bottom to support the mattress. The measurement has been given with slight variations in sundry works. According to my own, its size runs : Length, 38 inches. Width at head, 19 inches; at foot, 17 inches. Height of supports, including foot, 36 inches. The wood is in places worm-eaten, and it is become rickety. One of the carved supports is very much decayed. Though all beauty has disappeared from what was originally a handsome and solid piece of furniture, traces of gilding and red paint can still be detected here and there, on close examination, and the carving of the spandrels and the birds perched on the supports is remarkably bold and characteristic. sorry to say some pieces of carved wood of anachronistic style have been inserted, of late years, in the corners; while the old plain rail beneath has been replaced by similar carved work. This does not appear in Mr Shaw's excellent engraving of the cradle, in his great work on mediæval furniture |