King John—died at Swinshead Abbey, in Lincolnshire; his body was interred at Worcester; his bowels in Croxton Abbey Church, in Leicestershire, the abbot being his physician; and his heart at Croxden, in Staffordshire. Perhaps the most precious portion of his relics would be the hand that signed Magna Charta. (See page 279.)
The River Dove.—The fertility of the land on the upper parts of this river has always been proverbial: "as rich as Dove" being applied to any spot highly forced. The land has a perpetual verdure, and the spring-floods of the river are very gratifying to the land-occupiers, who have this proverb—
In April, Dove's flood
Is worth a king's good.
It is also said of Dove's banks in spring, that a stick laid down there over-night shall not be found next morning for grass.
St. Hellen's Well, near Rushton Spencer, in Staffordshire, is remarkable in superstitious history, for some singular qualities. It sometimes becomes suddenly dry, after a constant discharge of water for eight or ten years. This happens as well in wet as in dry seasons, and always at the beginning of May, when the springs are commonly esteemed highest; and so it usually continues till Martinmas, November 12, following. The people formerly imagined, that when this happened there would soon follow some stupendous calamity of famine, war, or some other national disaster, or change. It is said that it grew dry before the civil war, and again before the beheading of Charles I.; against the great scarcity of corn in 1670; and in 1679, when the miscalled Popish plot was discovered; but we do not hear that St. Hellen's Well withheld its supplies previous to, or upon, the breaking out of the last calamitous war.