A. S.
West Tofts Rectory, Brandon, Norfolk.
I know an instance where a person found a temporary, but at the same time an involuntary, home in a church porch. There was a dispute between the parishes of Frodingham and Broughton, co. Lincoln, some twelve months ago, as to the settlement of an old woman. She had been living for some time in, and had become chargeable to the latter parish, but was said to belong to the former. By some means or other the woman's son was induced to convey his mother to the parish of Frodingham, which he did; and as he knew quite well that the overseer of the parish would not receive her at his hands, he adopted the somewhat strange course of leaving her in the church porch, where she remained until evening, when the overseer of Frodingham took her away, fearing that her life might be in danger from exposure to the cold, she being far advanced in years. Until I saw Cheverells' Query, I thought the depository of the old woman in the church porch was, so far as the place of deposit was concerned, more accidental than designed; but after all it may be the remnant of some such custom as that of which he speaks, and I, for one, should be glad to see farther inquiry made into it. To which of J. H. Parker's Parochial Tales does Cheverells allude?
W. E. Howlett.
Kirton-in-Lindsey.
FERDINAND CHARLES III., DUKE OF PARMA.
(Vol. ix., p. 417.)
The late Duke of Parma was not the first lineal representative of the Stuarts, as stated by E. S. S. W. Victor Emanuel, King of Sardinia, who succeeded in 1802, left by his wife Maria Theresa of Austria four daughters. The eldest of these four, Beatrix, born in 1792, married, in 1812, Francis IV., Duke of Modena, and by him (who died on the 21st of January, 1846) had issue two sons and two daughters. The eldest of these sons, Francis V., the present reigning Duke of Modena, is therefore the person who would be now sitting on the English throne had the Stuarts kept the succession. He has no children, I believe, by his wife Adelgonda of Bavaria; and the next person in succession would therefore be Dorothea, the infant daughter of his deceased brother Victor.