Father Traves.—Can any of your Lancashire readers refer me to a source whence I might obtain information on matters pertaining to the life of one Father Travers [Traves], the friend and correspondent of the celebrated martyr John Bradford?
As yet I have but met with the incidental mention of his name in the pages of Fox, and in Hollingworth's Mancuensis, pp. 75, 76.
A Jesuit.
[The name is spelt by Fox sometimes Traves and sometimes Travers; but who he was there is no particular mention; except that it appears from Bradford's letters that he was some friend of the family, and from the superscription to one of them, that he was the minister of Blackley, near Manchester, in which place, or near to which, Bradford's mother must then have resided. Strype says, he was a learned and pious gentleman, his patron and counsellor.—Mem. Eccles., vol. iii. part I. p. 364.]
Precise Dates of Births and Deaths of the Pretenders.—Will any one be so kind as to tell me the date of the birth and death of James VIII. and his son Charles III. (commonly called Prince Charles Edward Stuart)? These dates are given so variously, that I am anxious to ascertain them correctly.
L. M. M. R.
[We believe the following to be the precise dates:—James VIII., born June 10, 1688; died January 2, 1765-6. Charles Edward, born December 20, 1720 (sometimes printed as New Style, Dec. 31); died January 31, 1788.]
Clarence.—Whence the name of this dukedom? Was the title borne by any one before the time of Lionel, son of Edward III.?
W. T. M.
[The title Clarence was, as we learn from Camden (Britannia, edit. Gough, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74.), derived from the honour of Clare, in Suffolk; and was first borne by Lionel Plantagenet, third son of Edward III., who married Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter and heir of William, Earl of Ulster, and obtained with her the honour of Clare. He became, jure uxoris, Earl of Ulster, and was created, September 15, 1362, Duke of Clarence.]