hold the heathen charm no longer, and he threw it into a lake not far from his metropolitan seat, where the town of Ingethüm now stands. The regard and affection of the monarch were immediately diverted from the monk, and all men, to the country surrounding the lake; and he determined on building there a magnificent palace for his constant residence, and robbed all the ancient royal and imperial residences, even to the distance of Ravenna, in Italy, to adorn it. Here he subsequently resided and died: but it seems the charm had a passive as well as an active power; his throes of death were long and violent; and though dissolution seemed every moment impending, still he lingered in ceaseless agony, till the Archbishop, who was called to his bed-side to administer the last sacred rites, perceiving the cause, caused the lake to be dragged, and, silently restoring the talisman to the person of the dying monarch, his struggling soul parted quietly away. The grave was opened by the third Otto in 997, and possibly the town of Aachen may have been thought the proper depository of the powerful drug, to be by them surrendered to one who was believed by many, as he believed himself to be, a second Charlemagne.

In The Illustrated London News of 8th March, 1845, is an engraving professing to be a correct representation of this antique relic; but it is not there described as "a small nut, in a gold filigree envelopment," and gives the idea of an ornament much too large for the finger or even wrist of any lady: that paper says, –

"This curious object of virtù is described in the Parisian journals as, la plus belle relique de l'Europe;' and it has, certainly, excited considerable interest in the archæological and religious circles of the continent. The talisman is of fine gold, of round form, as our illustration shows, set with gems, and in the centre are two rough sapphires, and a portion of the Holy Cross; besides other relics brought from the Holy Land."

D

QUEEN MARY'S EXPECTATIONS.

Most persons have heard of the anxiety of Queen Mary I. for the birth of a child, and of her various disappointments; but may not be aware that among the Royal Letters in the State Paper Office are letters in French, prepared in expectation of the event, addressed by Queen Mary, without date, except "Hampton Court, 1555" (probably about May), to her father-in-law, the Emperor Charles V., to Henry II., King of France, to Eleonora, Queen Dowager of France, to Ferdinand I., King of Bohemia, to Mary, the Queen Dowager of Bohemia, to the Doge of Venice, to the King of Hungary, and to the Queen Dowager of Hungary, announcing to each the birth of her child, the word being so written fil, as to admit of being made filz, or of an easy alteration to the feminine fille, if necessary.

WHAT WAS THE DAY OF THE ACCESSION OF
RICHARD III.?

Sir Harris Nicolas, in his Chronology of History (2nd edition, p. 326.) decides for June 26, 1433, giving strong reasons for such opinion. But his primary reason, founded on a fac-simile extract from the Memoranda Rolls in the office of the King's Remembrancer in the Exchequer of Ireland, printed, with fac-simile, in the second Report of the Commissioners on Irish Records, 1812, p. 160, gives rise to a doubt; for, as Sir Harris Nicolas states,

"It is remarkable that the printed copy should differ from the facsimile in the identical point which caused the letter to be published, for in the former the xxvijth of June' occurs, whereas in the facsimile it is the 'xxvjth of June.' The latter is doubtless correct; for an engraver, who copies precisely what is before him, is less likely to err than a transcriber or editor."

This is most probably the case; but perhaps some of your correspondents in Ireland will settle the point accurately. (iii. 351.)

This inquiry led to the following: —

I have examined the original inrolment of the entry upon the Remembrance Roll ex parte Capitalis Rememoratoris Hiberniæ, of the second year of Richard III., with the facsimile of that entry which appears in the Irish Record Reports (1810-1815, plate 9), and I find that the fac-simile is correct. The accession of Richard III. is shown by the entry upon the original record to have taken place on the twenty-sixth day of June. This entry is, as I have stated, upon the roll of the second year of Richard III., and not of the first year, as stated by the said Record Reports, there being no Remembrance or Memoranda Roll of the first year of that monarch to be found amongst the Exchequer Records of Ireland. Upon this subject of Richard III.'s accession, I beg to transmit to you the copy of a regal table which is entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, probably the most ancient, as well as the most curious, record in Ireland. Judging by the character of the handwriting of this Tabula Regum, I would come to the conclusion, that the entries prior in date to that of Henry VIII.'s reign have been made during the time of that monarch; or, in other words, that this table has probably not been compiled at any time previous to the reign of Henry VIII.

J. F. F. Nomina Regum Angl post conquestū Willi Bastard.

Wills conquestor regnavit p

XXI ann. Beried at

Cane.

XXXVI ann.

XIII anñ.

XX anñ.

XXXVI anñ.

Henr cius regñ punu annu impfectum & ideo non

MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE EARL OF BOTHWELL.

Among the curious documents which have been produced from time to time before the House of Lords in support of peerage claims, there have been few of greater historical interest than the one which we now reprint from the Fourth Part of the Evidence taken before the Committee of Privileges on the Claim of W. Constable Maxwell, Esq., to the title of Lord Herries of Terregles. It is a copy of the Contract of Marriage between Queen Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, which, although it is said to have been printed by Carmichael, in his Various Tracts relating to the Peerage of Scotland, extracted from the Public Records,

has not been referred to by Robertson, or other historians of Scotland, not even by the most recent of them, Mr. Tytler.

Mr. Tytler tells us that on the 12th of May, 1567, Bothwell was created Duke of Orkney, "the Queen with her own hands placing the coronet on his head," and that the marriage took place on the 15th of May at four o'clock in the morning in the presence-chamber at Holyrood ; and that on the following morning a paper, with this ominous verse, was fixed on the palace gate:

“Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait.”

The Contract, which is dated on the fourteenth of May, is preserved in the Register of Deeds in the Court of Session (Vol. IX. p. 86), and as the copy produced before the House is authenticated -and consequently it may be presumed a more strictly accurate one than that which Carmichael has given—it seems well deserving of being transferred to our columns, and so made more available to the purposes of the historian, than it has been found to be in Carmichael's Tract, or is likely to be when buried in a Parliamentary Blue Book.

Decimo quarto Maij anno domini te. lxvij.

Sederunt dni sessionis clericus reğri.

In pns of ye lordis of counsale comperit personale nae ryt excellent ryt heicht and michte princes Marie be ye grace of God queene of Scottis douieier of France on that ane pairt and ane ryt noble and potent prince James duk of Orkney erl Bothule lord Hales crychtoun and Liddisdeall great admiral of ye realm of Scotland on yt vyr pt and gaif in yis contract and appointnament following subscriuit wt y' handis and desyrit ye samen to be insert in ye bukis of counsale to haif ye strenth force and effect of y2 act and decreit thereupoun the q1k desyre ye saidis lordis thocht reasonable and y'for hes decernit and decernis ye said contract and appointnament to be insert and registret in ye said bukis to haif ye strenth force and effect of y' act and