The Jury, after two days' long sitting, decided that Queenborough was neither a manor nor a reputed manor.
A. J. Dunkin.
Dartford.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
Parliamentary History, 1765.—On Wednesday, Dec. 6, 1654, an attempt was made to disfranchise Queenborough: the then member, Mr. Garland, suddenly and jocularly moved the Speaker that we give not any legacies before the Speaker was dead. This pleasant conceit so took with the House, as, for that time, Queenborough was reprieved, but was voted for the future to be dismembered, and to be added to the county.—Ap. Burton i. cxi. Archæological Mine, i. 12. Queenborough was one of the victims included in Schedule A of the act of parliament known as "The Reform Bill."
In our own day Cove has been called Queenstown in honour of Queen Victoria.
Leeze-holders, a right of turning on the coming or Leeze (Celtic, Leswes) twenty-four sheep, which of late years, by a bye-law, has been arranged to substitute either two horses or three bullocks. A Leeze is supposed to contain about seven acres of land of herbage. The common consists of about 240 acres, including roads.
See Hogarth's Visit, &c. to Queenborough. A hearty laugh will repay the trouble. The mayor was then a thatcher: the room remains as it did in Hogarth's day; and as Queenborough was then, so it is now, one long street without any trade.
Of Mr. Greet's mayoralty many humorous tales are told: he was at times popular, but towards the close of his reign most decidedly the reverse. At his funeral the dredgers, &c. threw halfpence into his grave to pay his passage to the lower regions. He, one day, ex officio, sentenced a pilferer to a flogging at the cart's tail, and as executioners did not volunteer, he took off his coat, and himself applied the cat to the bare back of the culprit from one end of the street to the other. Mr. Greet was one of the best friends Queenborough ever had. After his death it plunged deeply into debt, had its paraphernalia and books seized and sold by the sheriff, and now all its property is in the hands of trustees to pay its debts, whilst its poor-rates are, a witness, a late mayor said, nine shillings in the pound. The debt was originally 12,700l.; but as no interest has been paid thereon, it is now 17,000l. The trustees have received about 4,000l., but this sum has been melted in subsequent litigation; for Queenborough men are mightily fond of supporting the law courts.