cause he would have poisoned divers persons." Therefore the same punishment appears to have previously attached to the offence. It has not, however, been traced to still earlier times. (See "Notes and Queries," 1852, vol. v. pp. 32, 112, 184.) A third instance of its execution has been found in the chronicle of King's Lynn, about the same time as Roose's case: "1531. This year here was a maid boiled to death in the Market-place for poisoning her mistress." (Ibid. p. .) A fourth occurs in 1542, which is briefly mentioned in p. 45 of the present volume, and somewhat differently by Stowe, as follows: "The 17 March [i.e. a week later] Margaret Davy, a maid, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of the household that she had dwelled in." Sir Walter Scott, in his Border Minstrelsy (notes to Leyden's ballad of Lord Soulis), gives this passage with the erroneous date of 1524, following a misprint in Stowe's margin. The punishment by boiling is supposed to have been repealed by the statute 1 Edward VI. c. 12, by which all new treasons were abolished.
P. 65. Peter college, next the dean's place in Paul's church-yard. Stowe, in his Survay, does not tell us what Peter college was, but he thus mentions the accident recorded in the text, somewhat differently as to the particulars: "Then is the Stationers' hall on the same side [south-west of the cathedral church], lately built for them in the place of Peter college, where, in the year 1549, the 4th of January, five men were slain by the fall of earth upon them, digging for a well." I am inclined to think that "Peter College" was a perverted name of the Petty-canons' college, of the foundation of which in 17 Ric. II. Stowe gives some account in a previous passage.
P. 72. The fairest lady that she had of her country was stolen away from her (Mary of Guise dowager queen of Scots). It has been kindly suggested to me, (Notes and Queries, v. 305,) in answer to an inquiry on this passage, that the lady in question was probably the same lady who is mentioned in the following passage of a letter of sir John Mason, the English ambassador in France, to the privy council, dated the 18th April, 1551: "The Scotish queen's shipping is hasted very much. It is thought she shall embark a month sooner than she intended. The lady Fleming departed hence, with child by this king [Henri II.] and it is thought that, immediately upon the arrival of the dowager in Scotland, she will come again to fetch another. If she so do, here is like to be a combat, the heartburning being already very great; the old worn pelf [Diana of Poictiers, then aged fifty-three,] fearing thereby to lose some part of her credit, who presently reigneth alone, and without empeasche." And again, from Amboise, April 29, "The said post hath brought word, that the lady Fleming is brought to bed of a man-child, whereat our women do not much rejoyce." Mr. Tytler (History of Scotland, 1842, 8vo. vol. vi. pp. 374, 375) states his suspicion that this lady was Jean, widow of Malcolm third lord Fleming, herself a natural daughter of James the Fourth of Scotland, by Agnes Stewart, countess of Bothwell, or by her sister lady Isabel Stewart, who were the natural children of James earl of Buchan, natural brother of king James II. (Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, by Wood, i. 52, 227, 268). Were this the frail lady Fleming of the year 1551, it might have been said that she was but following the bad examples of her forebears: but as she was
