[60] Works, p. 340.
[61] Works, p. 346.
[62] Dunlugas is in the parish of Alvah, close by the river Deveron, on the east side.
[63] Works, p. 341.
[64] "He was alive last Whitsuntide! said the coachman.... Whitsuntide!—alas! cried Trim.... What is Whitsuntide, Jonathan, or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this!" (Tristram Shandy, vol. v. chap. vii.).
Our author states (Works, p. 341) that "his father's death occurred in August in the year 1642, some four yeares after the hatching of the Covenant." He is, however, very careless in details of fact, and is in error concerning this date. Sir Thomas Urquhart, senior, is termed "umqll" (i.e. "the late") in the Burgess Roll of Banff, on 14th June, 1642 (Annals of Banff, ii. 418). Perhaps the date was April instead of August. The Covenant was signed 1st March, 1638.
[65] Works, pp. 346, 347.
[66] Calendar of Proceedings of Committee for Advances of Moneys-Taxes, i. 381.
[67] The neighbourhood is now a cluster of narrow, dirty streets and passages, lined chiefly with butchers' and grocers' shops, which overflow into the adjacent streets, and are supplemented by fishmongers and miscellaneous stalls and barrows—a crowded, noisy, and unsavoury place on Saturday nights. In 1640, Charles I. granted his licence to Thomas York, his executors, etc., to erect as many buildings as they thought proper upon St Clement's Inn Fields, the inheritance of the Earl of Clare. He issued another licence in 1642, permitting Gervase Holles, Esq., to make several streets of the width of thirty, thirty-four, and forty feet. These streets still retain the names and titles of their founders—Clare Street, Denzil Street, and Holles Street. Clare Street is somewhat rich in interesting associations. There is a letter of Steele's to his wife, dated from the Bull Head Tavern in this street, 24th August, 1710. It seems likely that he was hiding there. Mrs Bracegirdle, a celebrated actress of that time, "was in the habit of going into that neighbourhood, and giving money to the poor basket-women, insomuch that she could not pass without having thankful acclamations from people of all degrees." It was to Clare Street and Clare Market that Jack Sheppard went, after his escape from Newgate: he there bought a butcher's frock and woollen apron, which he was wearing when captured at Finchley. Here was Johnson's Hotel, celebrated for upwards of seventy years for its à la mode beef. Isaac Bickerstaffe, too, lived in this street.
[68] John Holles, created Baron Houghton of Houghton, in the county of Nottingham, in 1616, and Earl of Clare in 1624.