Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-05-12

BRoUGHAM'S GRANDMoTHERS STORIES
NY grandmother was born in Queen Anne's
reign, so | have c0nversed with q person who
was alive $50 ago, and who might have heard
her relative, Ann Brougham, who lived to the
age of 106, speak of events that happened in
Queen Elizabeth's time! This is only conjecture
but it is at all events certain fact that |, now
writing in the latter half of the nineteenth cen
fury, have heard my grandmother, being at the
time refer to about ninety years of age, relate
all the circumstances of the execution of Charles
l., as they had been told to her by an eye-wit-
ness, who stood opposite to Whitehall and saw
the king come out upon the scaffold. think
the story was told to her about the year 1920,
and she talked of her informant as having been
quite old enough at the time of the eXecu-
tion to have carried away a clear and accurate
recollection of all the details. Her own memo
ry was most perfect; nor did the event appear
to her to be very remote, for she herself perfect
ly remembered the attempt Of the pretender in
1715-not that she ever called him by that name,
for she was rather a Jacobite, but yet very
high church Protestant, continually fighting
with her neighbor, Mr.. Howard of Corby, a
most strict Papist, about transubstantiation,
which she called by a very expressive term,
when she referred to one of their angry dis.
cussions, which Mr.. Howard ended by eX-
claiming, 'Irs no good your denying it, Nine.
Brougham, for | myself have crunched the
bones, meaning when he TOOK the sacramental
wafer. She had a strong feeling for Charles H.,
and entertained a high regard for her hus-
bands cousin, Father John Huddeston, who at
tended Charles in his last moments.
heard also from my grandmother remarkable
story about her husbands funeral. He died at
Brougham in December, 1882. Neither my
father nor his brother John were then in West
moreland. Charles, duke of Norfolk, Gather of
the duke who went by the name Of the "Jockey
OF Norfolk" after his ancestor of Bosworth J
was then living at Greystoke, in Cumberland
-. I ..c.l
attended the funeral as representing the CHIEF
mourner. Ia that character his place was at the
head of the table at the funeral feast, where he
was supported by all the gentlemen of the coun-
ty. After the dinner the duke rose and adj
dressed the guests as follows: ''Friends and
neighbors, before give you the toast of the day
the memory of the deceased ask you TO drink
to the health OF the family physician, DIR. Har-
rison, the founder Of the FEAST" Many toasts fol-
lowed. The guests drank long and deeply. The
funeral then proceeded on its way to the parish
church of Brougham, called Nine churches, a
corruption of st. Ninian, to whom it is dedi-
Gated, distance of three miles, the road wind
ing along the steep banks of the river Eamont.
Arrived at the church, the hearse was met by
the rector, but the coffin had disappeared. The
shock was enough to sober the merry mourners.
On searching back, the coffin was discovered in
the river, into which it had fallen, pitched down
the steep bank, at a place where probably the
hearse driven by the drunken coachman, had
lurched against a rock. The oak outer coffin
was broken to pieces, but the lead remained in
tact at the bottom OF the river, too heavy to be
carried down by the stream. The shock and the
scandal produced by all this had the effect not
only of SOLDERING everybody, but of putting an
end to such dlsgraceful orgies In the county for
the future. The accuracy Of my grandmother's
story was strongly confirmed by an event which
happened many years afterward. In October,
1916, the wall of our vaultin the chancel of Nine
churches had given way; on the vault being
opened to make the necessary repairs, myself
saw the lead coffin of my grandfather, battered
and bulged from its tumble down the rocky
bank of the river.-MenoirS Of Lord Broughdnl,
7Driffen bu himself