June 17.
St. Botolph.
This English saint, whose festival is on this day, with his brother Adulph, another saint, travelled into Belgic Gaul, where Adulph became bishop of Maestricht, and Botolph returned home with news of the religious houses he had seen abroad, and recommendations from the two sisters of Ethelmund, king of the south Saxons, who resided in France, to their brother in England. Ethelmund gave him a piece of land near Lincoln, called Icanhoe, “a forsaken uninhabited desert, where nothing but devills and goblins were thought to dwell: but St. Botolphe, with the virtue and sygne of the holy crosse, freed it from the possession of those hellish inhabitants, and by the means and help of Ethelmund, built a monasterie therein.” Of this establishment of the order of St. Benedict, St. Botolph became abbot. He died on this day in June, 680, and was buried in his monastery, which is presumed by some to have been at Botolph’s bridge, now called Bottle-bridge, in Huntingdonshire; by others, at Botolph’s town, now corruptly called Boston in Lincolnshire; and again, its situation is said to have been towards Sussex. Boston seems, most probably, to have been the site of his edifice.
St. Botolph’s monastery having been destroyed by the Danes, his relics were in part carried to the monastery of Ely, and part to that of Thorney. Alban Butler, who affirms this, afterwards observes that Thorney Abbey, situated in Cambridgeshire, founded in 972, in honour of St. Mary and St. Botolph, was one of those whose abbots sat in parliament, that St. Botolph was interred there, and that Thorney was anciently called Ancarig, that is, the Isle of Anchorets. It may here be remarked, however, that Westminster was anciently called Thorney, from its having been covered by briars; and that the last-written “History of Boston” refers to Capgrave, as saying, “that in the book of the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate, London, there is mention how a part of the body of St. Botolph was, by king Edward of happy memory, conferred on the church of St. Peter in Westminster.” Father Porter, in his “Flowers of the Saincts,” says, “it hath been found written in the booke of St. Botolphe’s church, near Aldersgate, in London, that part of his holy bodie was by king Edward given to the abbey of Winchester.” The editor of the Every-Day Book possessed “the register book of the church of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate,” when he wrote on “Ancient Mysteries,” in which work the manuscript is described: it wanted some leaves, and neither contained the entry mentioned by Capgrave, nor mentioned the disposition of the relics of St. Botolph. Besides the places already noticed, various others throughout the country are named after St. Botolph, and particularly four parishes of the city of London, namely, in Aldersgate before mentioned, Aldgate, Billingsgate, and Bishopsgate. Butler says nothing of his miracles, but Father Porter mentions him as having been “famous for miracles both in this life and after his death.”
Lady’s Dress in 1550.
The gentleman whose museum furnished the Biddenden cake, obligingly transmits an extract from some papers in his collection, relative to a wedding on this day.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,—Perhaps the following account of the dresses of a lady in olden time may be interesting to your readers:—
The wedding-clothes of Miss Eliz. Draper, 1550, a present from her husband, John Bowyer, Esq. of Lincoln’s-inn:—
The wedding-ring is described as weighing “two angels and a duckett,” graven with these words, “Deus nos junxit, J.E.B.Y.R.” The date of the marriage is inserted by Mr. B. with great minuteness (at the hour of eight, the dominical letter F. the moon being in Leo), with due regard to the aspects of the heavens, which at that time regulated every affair of importance.
I am, &c.
J. I. A. F.
June 5, 1826.