{54}

“In the 19th year of the reign of Edward III., she became a nun in the Abbey of Langley, in the country of Norfolk; but quitting that religious establishment, she married Sir Ralph Cobham, Knt., and died anno 36 Edward III.”

By Cal.  Ing.  P. Mortem, vol. i. p. 328., we find that Ralph Cobham died 19th Edward III.[2], that is, the same year in which the Countess entered the Abbey, from whence we may conclude that she retired there to pass in seclusion the period of mourning.

W. HASTINGS KELKE.

[Footnote 2:  If my copy be correct, it is 19 Edw.  II. in the printed calendar:  but it must have been Edw.  III., for, from the possessions described, it must have been Sir Ralph Cobham who married the widow of Thomas de Brotherton.]

* * * * *

HENRY CHETTLE.

Dr. Rimbault, in the introduction to his edition of Kind-Hearts’ Dream, for the Percy Society, says, “Of the author, Henry Chettle, very little is known:  ... we are ignorant of the time and place of his birth or death, and of the manner in which he obtained his living.” (Pp. vii. viii.) I trouble you with this note in the hope that it may furnish him with a clue to further particulars of Henry Chettle.

Hutchins (Hist. of Dorset., vol. i. p. 53. ed. 1774) mentions a family named Chettle, which was seated at Blandford St. Mary from 1547 to about 1690, and gives the following names as lineal successors to property in that parish:  Henry Chettle, ob. 1553.  John, s. and h., ob. 1590.  Edward, s. and h., ob. 1609, “leaving Henry, his son and heir, eleven years nine months old.”  Among the burials for the same parish (p. 57.) occurs “Henry Chettle, Esq., 1616;” and at pp. 119. 208. the marriage of “Henry Chettle, Gent., and Susan Chaldecot, 1610.”  This last extract is from the register of the parish of Steple, in the Isle of Purbeck, which also contains, says Hutchins, many notices of the Chettle family; but all, I should infer, subsequent to the year 1610.

I have ascertained that the statement in Hutchins corresponds with the entry in the register of Blandford St. Mary, of the burial of Henry Chettle in 1616; and that there is no entry of the baptism of any one of that name.  In fact, the registers only begin in 1581.  Now it is clear that there were two persons of this name living at the same time, viz.  H.C., aged eleven years in 1609; and H.C., who marries in 1610.  And if the conjecture of the learned editor be correct, as probably it is, that the poet, Henry Chettle, “died in or before the year 1607,” it is equally clear that he was a third of the same name, and that he could not be the person whose name occurs as buried in 1616.  But the name is not a common one, and there seems sufficient to warrant further research into this subject.  I venture, therefore, to make these two suggestions in the form of Queries: