Whittington and his Cat.
This fable of the cat is borrowed from the East. Sir William Gore Ousely, speaking of the origin of the name of an island in the Persian Gulf, says that in the tenth century, one Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf, embarked for India with his sole property, a cat. "He fortunately arrived there at a time when the palace was so infested by mice or rats that they invaded the king's food, and persons were employed to drive them away from the royal banquet. Keis produced his cat; the noxious animals disappeared; Keis was magnificently rewarded, sent for his mother and brother, and settled on the island, which was subsequently called after him."
Head of James IV. of Scotland.
The king was slain in the battle at Flodden Field. At the close of the bloody arbitrament his body was found among a heap of the fallen. The discoverers made a prize of the corpse, wrapped it up in lead, and transmitted it as a thanksgiving offering to the monastery of Sheen, in Surrey. It was well taken care of by the honest people there as long as the monastery stood; but when the dissolution of those religious establishments took place, and the edifice was converted into a mansion for the Duke of Suffolk, the king's body was put into a fresh wrapping of lead and carried into an upper lumber-room. Some workmen engaged in the house cut off the head out of sheer wantonness. Their master, a glazier from Cheapside, carried the head with him to the city. There, on his sideboard, the dried remnant of a crowned king, with its red hair and beard, was long the admiration of the glazier's evening parties and a subject of conversation for his guests. John Stow saw it there, expostulated, purchased the anointed skull, and gave it quiet and decent burial within the old church of St. Michael's.