As for instances of such precedence being claimed, it is not easy to recollect what is usually taken as a thing so much of course. Perhaps the instance of a Duke, who had been Lord Lieutenant forty years, apologising to a Sheriff for having inadvertently taken precedence, may serve.
VICE. COM. DEPUTAT.
In answer to L. J.'s inquiry, upon what authority the precedency of the Sheriff over the Lord Lieutenant is maintained; may it not partly be founded on the office of Sheriff being of greater antiquity, and on this officer having the command over, and the power of summoning all the people of the county above the age of fifteen, and under the degree of a peer? The office of Lord Lieutenant was first created in the third year of King Edward VI., to suppress, as Strype tells us, "the routs and uproars" in most of the counties. We might suppose that the Sheriff already possessed sufficient power for this purpose: the means then adopted to promote tranquillity were not well calculated to be popular among the people. No drum or pipe was to be struck or sounded. Plays were forbidden. In the churches of Devonshire and Cornwall, Lord Russell was to take down every bell in a steeple but one, so as to prevent a peal being rung.
The precedency in question is acted upon to the present hour; and a Lord Lieutenant, however high his rank in the peerage, gives place to the Sheriff as a matter of course. But do not both these officers yield precedence to her Majesty's justices of assize, when actually engaged on the circuit?
J. H. M.
ST. CHRISTOPHER.
(Vol. v., pp. 295. 334. 372.)
Two questions are asked by E. A. H. L. concerning St. Christopher: 1. Are there any known representations of St. Christopher in painted glass? There is a very interesting example in a window in St. Neot's Church, Cornwall. It represents St. Christopher with the child Jesus on his back, and below has the legend: "Sante Christophere, ora pro me." This ancient window was presented to the church by three members of the Borlase family. Their benefaction is recorded in the inscription along the cill of the window:
"Orate pro animabus Catherine Burlas, Nicolai Burlas, et Johannis Vyvian, qui istam fenestram fieri fecerunt."
Another example of St. Christopher, bearing the divine infant, is in one of the lights of the three-light window over the altar of All Saints' Church, North Street, York. It is the work of the fifteenth century.
In the same city, St. John's Church, Micklegate, has two representations of St. Christopher in glass. One is the window north of the altar, but it is only a portion of the figure; the other is in the window south of the altar, and of perpendicular character. In St. Martin-le-Grand, Coney Street, in the sixth or eastern window of the north aisle, is a figure of St. Christopher, of date about 1450. St. Michael-le-Belfroy, in the same city, has two figures of the saint: one, of perpendicular character, in the window north of the altar; the other, a fragment, in the fourth window from the east end on the south side, of date between 1540 and 1550. Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, possesses a very beautiful figure of the saint. It forms the fifth of a series of five large figures in the east window of the church, and seems to bear the date 1470.