Woburn Abbey.
General Braddock.—Can any of your readers furnish me with information relative to this officer? His disastrous expedition against Fort Du Quesne, and its details, are well known; but I should like to know something more of his previous history. Walpole gives an anecdote or two of him, and mentions that he had been Governor of Gibraltar. I think too he was of Irish extraction. Is there no portrait or engraving of Braddock in existence?
Serviens.
Minor Queries with Answers.
Lawless Court, Rochford, Essex.—A most extraordinary custom exists, in a manor at Rochford, in the tenants holding under what is called the "Lawless Court." This court is held at midnight, by torch-light, in the centre of a field, on the first Friday after the 29th Sept., and is presided over by the steward of the manor, who, however, appoints a deputy to fulfil this part of his duty. The tenants of the manor are obliged to attend to answer to their names, when called upon, under pain of a heavy fine, or at all events have some one there to respond for them. All the proceedings are carried on in a whisper, no one speaking above that tone of voice; and the informations as to deaths, names, &c. are entered in a book by the president with a piece of charcoal. I may add, the business is not commenced until a cock has crowed three times, and as it is sometimes a difficult matter to get Chanticleer to do his duty, a man is employed to crow, whose fee therefor is 5s.
Now Morant, in his History of Essex, merely cursorily mentions this most singular custom, and has nothing as to its antiquity or origin; I should therefore feel much obliged for any information concerning it.
Russell Gole.
[The singular custom at Rochford is of uncertain origin: in old authors it is spoken of as belonging to the manor of Rayleigh. The following account of "The Lawless Court," at that place, is printed by Hearne from the Dodsworth MSS. in the Bodleian, vol. cxxv.:—"The manor of Raylie, in Essex, hath a custome court kept yearly, the Wednesday nexte after Michael's day. The court is kept in the night, and without light, but as the skye gives, att a little hill without the towne, called the King's Hill, where the steward writes only with coals, and not with inke. And many men and mannors of greate worth hold of the same, and do suite unto this strange court, where the steward calls them with as low a voice as possibly he may; giving no notice when he goes to the hill to keepe the same court, and he that attends not is deepely amerced, if the steward will. The title and entry of the same court is as followeth, viz.:
'Curia de domino rege,