These are some of the legendary traditions regarding the history and site of the wood of the cross, up to the time of the Passion of Christ.
Ceyrep.
EDMUND CHALONER.
(Vol. vi., p. 292.)
I have been waiting for several months in expectation of seeing some satisfactory reply to Ursula's Query. It seems, however, that, in common with myself, your numerous correspondents are quite at a nonplus. Wood, in his Athenæ Oxoniensis, vol. ii. p. 163., mentions this Edmund Chaloner as being about nineteen (Ursula says twenty-one) years old at the death of his father, James Chaloner, in 1660. Wood, Granger, as also Burke in his Extinct Baronetage, represent James as being the fourth son of Sir Thomas Chaloner of Gisborough, in the county of York, and this appears to be the general impression as to his parentage. In a History of Cheshire, however, written, I believe, by Cowdray, and published in 1791, the author claims him as a native of that county, and makes him to be of much humbler birth and descent than any of his other biographers. Hear him in his own words:
"Our succeeding (Cheshire) collectors form a family harmonic trio, a father, son, and grandson, of the surname of Chaloner, and of the several Christian names, Thomas, Jacob, and James. Thomas was an arms-painter in Chester about 1594; he knew the value of learning sufficiently to give his son a better education than he received himself. And this son followed the same occupation in Chester, and made collections, about the year 1620. But it was James, the grandson, who reflected the greatest credit upon his family, by a very concise, accurate, and sensible account of the Isle of Man, printed at the end of King's Vale Royal, in 1656. He laid the foundation of a learned education in our much honoured college (Brazennoze); and when the parliament invested Lord Fairfax with the Seignory of Man, he was one of his lordship's three commissioners for settling the affairs of that island. The antiquarian collections of all the three Chaloners are valuable."
Without specially binding myself to either one of these conflicting testimonies, I may be allowed to suggest that, apart from any proof to the contrary, the inference that he was a native of Chester is a perfectly fair and legitimate one. His Short Treatise of the Isle of Man, which was the only work he ever sent to press, was printed at the end of that famous Cheshire work, the Vale Royal of England, in 1656, and was illustrated with engravings by Daniel King, the editor of that work, himself a Cheshire man. Independent of this, his biographer Wood informs us that he was "a singular lover of antiquities," and that he "made collections of arms, monuments, &c., in Staffordshire, Salop, and Chester," the which collections are now, I believe, in the British Museum. He made no collections for Yorkshire, nor yet for London, where he is stated by Wood to have been born. One thing is certain, James Chaloner of Chester was living at the time this treatise was written, and was, moreover, a famous antiquary, and a collector for this, his native county; but whether he was, de facto, the regicide, or merely his cotemporary, I leave it to older and wiser heads to determine.
T. Hughes.
Chester.