Mrs. Mary Norborne, of Calne, a gentlewoman worthy
of belief, told me that Mr.... White, Lord of
Langley’s grave was opened forty years after
he was buried. He lay in water, and his body not
perished, and some old people there remembred him
and knew him. He was related to Mrs. Norborne,
and her husband’s brother was minister here,
in whose time this happened.
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Mrs. May of Calne, upon the generall fright in their
church of the falling of the steeple, when the people
ran out of the church, occasioned by the throwing
of a stone by a boy, dyed of this fright in halfe
an hour’s time. Mrs. Dorothy Gardiner was
frightened at Our Lady Church at Salisbury, by the
false report of the falling of the steeple, and died
in... houres space. The Lady Jordan being at
Cirencester when it was beseiged (anno atatis 75) was
so terrified with the shooting that her understanding
was so spoyled that she became a child, that they
made babies for her to play withall.
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At Broad Chalke is a cottage family that the generation have two thumbes. A poor woman’s daughter in Westminster being born so, the mother gott a carpenter to amputate one of them with his chizel and mallet. The girl was then about seven yeares old, and was a lively child, but immediately after the thumb was struck off, the fright and convulsion was so extreme, that she lost her understanding, even her speech. She lived till seventeen in that sad condition.
The Duke of Southampton, who was a most lovely youth, had two foreteeth that grew out, very unhandsome. His cruel mother caused him to be bound fast in a chaire, and had them drawn out; which has caused the want of his understanding.
[This refers to Charles Fitzroy, one of the natural
sons of King Charles ii. by his mistress, Barbara
Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland. He was created
Duke of Southampton in 1674; became Duke of Cleveland
on the death of his “cruel mother “in 1709;
and died in 1730.-J. B.]
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Mdm. Dr. W. Harvey told me that the biteing of a man enraged is poysonous. He instanced one that was bitt in the hand in a quarrell, and it swoll up to his shoulder, and killed him in a short time. [That death, from nervous irritation, might follow such a wound is not improbable: but that it was caused by any “poison” infused into the system is an idea too absurd for refutation.- J. B.]