They relate, that while the great Sir Antony (temp. Hen. VIII.) was holding a revel, a monk presented himself before the guests and pronounced the curse of fire and water against the male descendants of the family, till none should be left, because the knight had received and was retaining the church-lands of Battle Abbey, and those which belonged to the priory of Eastbourne. Within the last hundred years, destiny, though slow of foot, has overtaken the fated race. In one day the hall perished by fire, and the lord by water, as mentioned by E. H. Y. The male line being extinct, the estate passed to the sister of Lord Montague. This lady was married to the late W. S. Poyntz, Esq., M.P. The two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz were drowned at Bognor, and the estate a second time devolved on the female representatives. These ladies, still living, are the Marchioness of Exeter, the Countess Spencer, and the Dowager Lady Clinton. The estate passed by purchase into the hands of the Earl of Egmont.
The old villagers, the servants, and the descendants of servants of the family, point to the ruins of the hall, and religiously cling to the belief that its destruction and that of its lords resulted from the curse. It certainly seems an illustration of Archbishop Whitgift's words to Queen Elizabeth:
"Church-land added to an ancient inheritance hath proved like a moth fretting a garment, and secretly consumed both: or like the eagle that stole a coal from the altar, and thereby set her nest on fire, which consumed both her young eagles and herself that stole it."
E. Rds.
Queen's Col., Birm., Feb. 20. 1851.
Red Hand (Vol. ii., p. 506., et antè).—A correspondent, Arun, says, "Your correspondents would confer a heraldic benefit if they would
point out other instances, which I believe to exist, where family reputation has been damaged by similar ignorance in heraldic interpretation." I have always thought this ignorance to be universal with the country people in England: I could mention several instances. First, when I was a boy at school I was shown the hatchments in Wateringbury church, in Kent, by my master, and informed that Sir Thomas Styles had murdered some domestic, and was consequently obliged to bear the "bloody hand:" and lastly, and lately, at Church-Gresley, in Derbyshire, at the old hall of the Gresley family, I was shown the marble table on which Sir Roger or Sir Nigel Gresley had cut up, in a sort of Greenacre style, his cook; for which he was obliged to have the bloody hand in his arms, and put into the church on his tomb.
H. W. D.
Anticipations of Modern Ideas by Defoe (Vol. iii., p. 137.).—The two tracts mentioned by your correspondent R. D. H., and which he states he has often sought in vain, namely, Augusta Triumphans, London, 1728, 8vo., and Second Thoughts are best, London, 1729, 8vo., are to be found in the Selection from Defoe's Works published by Talboys in 20 vols. 12mo. in 1840. They are both indisputably by Defoe, and contain, as your correspondent observes, many anticipations of modern improvements. I may mention that there is a tract, also beyond doubt by Defoe, on the subject of London street-robberies, which has never yet been noticed or attributed to him by any one. It is far more curious and valuable than Second Thoughts are best, and is perfectly distinct from that tract. It gives a history, and the only one I ever yet met with, written in all Defoe's graphic manner, of the London police and the various modes of street robbery in the metropolis, from the time of Charles II. to 1731, and concludes by suggestions of effectual means of prevention. It is evidently the work of one who had lived in London during the whole of the period. The title is—
"An effectual Scheme for the immediate preventing of Street Robberies, and suppressing all other Disorders of the Night, with a brief History of the Night Houses, and an Appendix relating to those Sons of Hell called Incendiaries. Humbly inscribed to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of the City of London. London: Printed for J. Wilford, at the Three Flower de Luees, behind the Chapter House in St. Paul's Church Yard. 1731. (Price 1s.) 8vo., pages 72."