[37]. See Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, ed. 1848.
HISTORIC TRADITIONS THROUGH FEW LINKS.
Of late years considerable interest has been added to the attraction of records of Longevity, by showing through how few individuals may be traced the evidence of far-distant events and incidents in our history.
Mr. Sidney Gibson, F.S.A., relates some curious instances of this class. A person living in 1847, then aged about 61, was frequently assured by his father that, in 1786, he repeatedly saw one Peter Garden, who died in that year at the age of 127 years; and who, when a boy, heard Henry Jenkins give evidence in a court of justice at York, to the effect that, when a boy, he was employed in carrying arrows up the hill before the battle of Flodden Field.
| This battle was fought in | 1513 | |
| Henry Jenkins died in 1670, | ||
| at the age of | 169 | |
| Deduct for his age at the time of | ||
| the battle of Flodden Field | 12 | |
| ——— | 157 | |
| Peter Garden, the man who heard | ||
| Jenkins give his evidence, died at | 127 | |
| Deduct for his age when he saw Jenkins | 11 | |
| ——— | 116 | |
| The person whose father knew Peter | ||
| Garden was born shortly before 1786, | ||
| or seventy years since | 70 | |
| ———— | ||
| A.D. | 1856 |
So that a person living in 1786 conversed with a man that fought at Flodden Field.
Mr. Gibson then passes on to some remarkable instances of longevity from the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, the record of the celebrated cause in the reign of Richard II., when, among the noble and knightly deponents who gave evidence in the following year, 1386, were:
Sir John Sully, Knight of the Garter and a distinguished soldier of the cross, who had served for eighty years, was then, by his own account, 105 years of age, and who is supposed to have died in his 108th year.