[41] Lord Scroope.
[42] Amongst which, as one of the fresh antiquities of Cornwall, let not the old woman be forgotten, who died about two years since, who was 164 years old, of good memory, and healthful at that age, living in the parish of Gwithian, by the charity mostly of such as came purposely to see her, speaking to them (in default of English) by an interpreter, yet partly understanding it. She married a second husband after she was 80, and buried him after he was 80 years of age. Her maiden name no one could remember, nor perhaps she herself. She was usually called after her two husbands’ several names severally and sometimes together, as it is usual for the meaner sort of people to do. As for her maiden name, she might say with a wench in Petronius, “Junonem meam iratam habeam si unquam meminerim me virginem fuisse.”
APPENDIX.
VI.
WILLIAM OF WORCESTER’S ITINERARY.
As no account of William of Worcester is to be found in the common Biographical Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, it has been thought proper to prefix a short notice of his life and character to the following extract from his Itinerary:
William was the son of William of Worcester, and of Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Bottoner. His surname he took indifferently from either; and he is consequently sometimes denominated William Worcester, and William Bottoner. Bishop Tanner describes him as descended of a knightly family, but upon what evidence is not known; yet from certain passages in the Itinerary his father would seem to have been a substantial householder.
He was born in the parish of St. James at Bristol in the year 1415; and as he speaks of a stone vault in that city as having been built in 1428, at his own expense, it is probable that he lost his father, and came to his inheritance at a very early age. Of his childhood nothing is known; but there is some reason to suppose that he was taught the rudiments of learning by Robert Lane, whom he has commemorated as a very eminent schoolmaster at Bristol when he was a youth. In 1432 he first went to Oxford, where he was admitted of Hart Hall, now Baliol College.
It is said, that he was supported at the University by the celebrated Sir John Fastolf; the same who, in his own day, had great renown for his valour and munificence, and