Saxon girdle-buckle from Kent, of different form, will be seen in Journal, iv, 158.

A further exhibition by Mr. Forman was a pair of Merovingian earrings of exceedingly base silver, but of most elaborate fabric. They consist of square plates with a papilla-shaped boss in the centre and one at each corner, the fields being covered with filigrane. Beneath each plate is attached a sort of basket ornament, which looks somewhat like the car of a balloon; and the stout wires to pass through the lobes of the ears have spiral surfaces.

Mr. Forman likewise contributed some fine examples of buttons, obtained at the sale of Mr. Whincopp's collection in June 1856. Mr. H. Syer Cuming remarked that, "The series now produced extends in date from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and presents some rare and curious types. The earliest are the hollow, convex buttons of brass with strong, flat-sided shanks, and the faces graven with quaint devices, in which clouds or scrolls seem the leading motive. These buttons appear to be of the time of Edward III. The convex, hexagonal button of brass with each face graven with scrolls, and the truncated apex with a minute quatrefoil, and having a strong, flat-sided shank, may belong to the early part of the fifteenth century. Most of the buttons that follow were linked in pairs, and employed to close the cloak or mantle. The earlier buttons were open at the back; but these, whilst retaining the convex fronts, have flat plates at the back, upon which the wire shank is soldered. The first to notice is a curious pair of silver buttons; the repoussée devices consisting of a female bust with dishevelled hair, crown of four pointed rays rising from a bandeau of five roses, necklace of seven beads, and on the front of the dress a rose, or quatrefoil brooch. Beneath the bust are clouds, and on the dexter side a rose, on the sinister a daisy. In Brayley's Graphic Illustrator (p. 125) are two 'ancient cloak buttons' of like size, material, and device, discovered near the banks of the Thames in excavating for the New Hungerford Market, and conjectured to have been made and worn in honour of Elizabeth of York.' This strange fancy was probably derived from a plate of some painted glass published by W. Ellis in 1792, which is stated to represent 'Elizabeth, heiress of the house of York, and queen of Henry VII'; but both glass and buttons really display the 'Maiden's head' of the Mercers' Company. This honourable fraternity was incorporated by charter A.D. 1393; but the buttons do not appear to be older than the sixteenth century, and were probably used by some of the brotherhood to secure their gowns on festive occasions. Next to these busts of the Virgin may be placed a silver link-button with a group of St. George and the dragon, found in the House of Lords in 1837, and on the back of which are scratched the letters H. W. Following this great mantle-button stands a delicate specimen, described by its former owner as a silver button

richly wrought in filigree. Heriot's dress. Ja I.' Whether this button. be actually from the doublet of the royal and loyal goldsmith, or merely resembles those shewn in his portraits, may be a question; but, whichever may be the case, it is a beautiful example of the hollow, globose buttons of the period, with a central and seven surrounding knobs projecting like pearls from the surface. To the seventeenth century may be referred a pair of silver, linked buttons with solid backs, and convex fronts formed of loops of filigrane radiating from a central boss. Of somewhat later date is a rose-shaped link-button of pewter with a central and six surrounding papilla-shaped protuberances. The design of this specimen is bold and effective, and worthy of reproduction as an ornament in the present day. The remaining examples are all of the eighteenth century, mostly round, oval, and octagonal wrist-buttons of silver and brass, decorated with roses, crowns, hearts, and other devices, and busts of Queen Anne, George I, William Duke of Cumberland, Dean Swift, Louis XV, etc. One brass button has on it a friar with a basket in his left hand, and on his back a bundle of straw, in which a damsel is concealed, surrounded by the words COUVENT PROVIDV."

Mr. Gunston made the following communication relating to a professed discovery of antiquities in the vicinity of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell:

"During the latter part of March last, two men, dressed as navvies, came to me and stated that they belonged to a gang employed in excavating for the Metropolitan Underground Railway, and that a few days previously, at a depth of twenty feet, was discovered, in apparently an old well, the remains of a wooden chest, in which were a number of leaden medals and figures, some of which they had brought for inspection and for sale. Having communicated with Mr. H. Syer Cuming, they were carefully examined, and the affair was at once regarded as an attempt at deception.

"The collection, as offered, consists of crowned monarchs clothed in ecclesiastical vestments, one holding his sword depressed with the right hand, whilst the left points upwards; another displays a banner on which the Virgin and child are represented; and a third upholds a cross and mundus. There are also knights furnished with various styles of mascled and chain-mail armour, archbishops, bishops, abbots, sub-deacons, deacons, priests, and acolytes; with mitres, croziers, and other proper emblems; nuns and laymen in strange forms and attitudes; heads of processional staves; incense cups, patens, and ewers; besides a quantity of triangular and circular plaques, with loops for suspension, each bearing a rude device and inscription. Their material is a mixture of old and new lead steeped in acid and dirt; many being broken and pierced in parts, to give the appearance of antiquity. In every instance they have been cast in different moulds, and vary in height from six to twentyfour inches, weighing separately from eight ounces to six pounds.

"I have been induced to bring these specimens before the Association, to shew that fabricated antiquities and fictitious 'finds' still continue to be forced upon us notwithstanding the notices already given,-particularly by our body,-and trust that the above may not be altogether useless, but rather invite collectors to continued watchfulness."

Mr. H. Syer Cuming read a paper (see pp. 153-156 ante, and plate 10) on the shrine in the possession of the Lord Bishop of Ely, exhibited to the Association on the 26th of February last.

Mr. Wakeman made the following communication in relation to the Rev. Mr. Hartshorne's paper of "Illustrations of Domestic Manners during the Reign of Edward I" (see pp. 66-75 ante):

"Who was Bogo de Clare?-On more than one occasion has our excellent friend, Mr. Planché, impressed upon the members of the Association the 'great importance of rectifying or verifying the minutest details affecting the genealogies of our Anglo-Norman families,' in regard to the light which such researches are calculated to throw upon history and biography. It is certainly to be regretted that the pedigrees of these noble houses should have come down to us in such an imperfect state. In the last number of the Journal, and the very interesting paper by the Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, under the head of Illustrations of Domestic Manners,' etc., he has given extracts from a roll of household expenses of 'a certain Bogo de Clare,' in 1284; upon whom he observes: "There is nothing to be gathered from the roll itself to shew who this individual was. In the accounts that have been written by Dugdale and others concerning the noble family of the earls of Clare, no such person appears on the pedigree, or in any way connected with this illustrious house. The only individual of the name that has occurred is a Bogo de Clare, who, by a charter in the nineteenth year of Edward I, had a grant of a fair at Follerton in Yorkshire. He is mentioned as treasurer of the cathedral of York.' Certain it is that Dugdale's genealogies are not to be implicitly relied upon; yet succeeding writers have, for the most part, contented themselves with copying him, and given themselves no trouble in verifying his statements. I lately had occasion to notice an extraordinary error in his pedigree of another noble family; and many of his mistakes in that of this family of De Clare were pointed out in a pamphlet published in 1730; but the corrections therein noticed related to an earlier period than the reign of Edward I.

"Mr. Hartshorne says: From the repeated notices these daily accounts give of the visits of the De Mortimers to Bogo de Clare; from the mention of his acquaintance with the prior of Striguil and Henry de Ludlow, who was the builder of Stokesay, it seems very probable that he was some connexion of the great earls of Clare,'-meaning the Clares earls of Gloucester,-in which he is perfectly correct. He was, indeed, a younger brother of Gilbert de Clare surnamed the 'Red Earl of

Gloucester and Hertford.' In the inquisition post mortem of Johanna, widow of Gilbert the Red, and an extent of the castle and manor of Tregrug, in the 35th Edward I, the jury say that, at the time when the said earl (Gilbert the Red) surrendered his lands and tenements into the hands of our lord the king (i.e., in 1290), Bogo de Clare, brother of the said earl, held the castle and manor (of Tregrug) by grant of the said earl, made long before the said surrender to the said Bogo and the heirs of his body lawfully begotten; and that after the death of the said Bogo the said castle and manor descended to the said earl by hereditary right, because the said Bogo died without issue of his body lawfully begotten.' This sufficiently establishes his parentage, and that he died before his brother the Red Earl,' whose death happened on the 25th December, 1295. An entry in another inquisition and extent of the same castle and manor, taken on 27 Sept. (8 Edw. II) 1315, after the death of his nephew Gilbert, son of the 'Red Earl,' and the last earl of the family, may be noticed, although not very complimentary as shewing the character of the man. The jury say that there is a certain tenement there of thirtysix acres, formerly the property of Seisild ap Grono and Howel ap Grono, which is in the earl's hands by the extortion, as is said, of Bogo de Clare, and for which the heirs are suing at law; and it is worth, by the year, six shillings.'

"Besides the office of treasurer of York, Bogo de Clare was rector of Fordingbridge in Wilts, and chancellor of Llandaff: the latter by the appointment of his brother, who, as lord of Glamorgan, claimed the advowson of the bishopric and the appointment of all the dignitaries and officers in the cathedral. Accordingly, upon the death of Bishop William de Breuse, in March 1286-7, the earl seized all the temporalities in Glamorgan, as did other lords marchers in what is now the county of Monmouth. The chapter having elected Philip de Staunton, precentor of Wells, to the vacant see, Bogo refused to attach the seal to the return. The documents relating to this claim, and the dispute with the crown, are published in Browne Willis' Survey of the Cathedral Church of Llandaff, which may be referred to. The chancellorship of Llandaff is appendant to the prebendal stall in that church, called Prebendo Magistri Howel'; and no doubt Bogo de Clare held some living attached to that prebend, and very probably other church preferment at present unknown.

"The castle of Tregrug, mentioned above, is between two and three miles from Usk, and is more generally known as Llangibby Castle, of which there are considerable remains.

was.

"Having proved who Bogo de Clare was, I will venture to inquire if any of our associates can inform me whose son Sir Nicholas de Clare He and a Richard de Clare, whose parentage is equally unknown, attended Gilbert, the last earl of Gloucester, at a tournament at Dunstable, in 1309, as his esquires. On the death of his lord he had the

custody of the manor, etc., of Campden, in Gloucestershire, committed to him. This seems to shew that he was a relative of the earl. He held an estate near Monmouth, under the Duke of Lancaster, by knight's service, which in 1361 was in the possession of his widow Johanna. He was buried in the church of the Black Friars at Hereford, being then a knight. There were several others of the name of Clare, who are unnoticed in the family pedigrees: among others, the Richard de Clare mentioned above as one of Earl Gilbert's esquires at Dunstable, may be the 'Magister Ricardus de Clare' who was one of the king's escheators in the counties citra Trent, from 8th to 18th Edward II; and ultra Trent, 10th Edward II; and the same, I suppose, as 'Magister Ricardus de Clare, clericus,' who, in 18th Edward II, was fined a hundred shillings for having acquired an estate in Ruardean, Gloucestershire, without the king's licence. He had the custody of great part of the property of Earl Gilbert in England; which, however, does not prove his relationship, as it may have been by virtue of his office of escheator.

"Should any of our associates have met with anything respecting either of these individuals, they would much oblige me by communicating it."

MAY 14.

GEORGE VERE IRVING, ESQ., V.P., IN THE CHAIR.

Herbert Hadden, Esq., of Bessborough Gardens, was elected a corresponding member.

Thanks were voted for the following presents :

To the Society: Collections by the Sussex Archæological Society. Vol. xiii. Sussex, 8vo., 1861.

Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. Vol. xiii, forming vol. i. New Series. Liverpool, 1861.

8vo.

First Annual Report of the Committee of the Five Societies of Liverpool Gallery of Inventions and Science. Liverpool, 1861. 8vo.

To the Publisher: Gentleman's Magazine for May 1861. 8vo.

Mr. John Turner exhibited the following objects discovered in excavating opposite the Carron Wharf, Upper Thames-street:-1. Knifehaft of bone, three inches and a half high, representing a lady of the time of Henry IV, clothed in a long tight-fitting gown, the head being covered with a kerchief or veil of square form, with a bandeau in front adorned with crosses, bearing on her left hand a hawk. The hawk upon the finger is indicative of rank as early as the twelfth century, see