leading from the arched gateway, which formerly stood by the present gatehouse; and the other leading through the Bishop's Wood from Park Gate, which formerly stood at the Spaniards, both of these are elsewhere treated upon as Highgate and Park Gates.

The following deserves its share of interest, as confirmatory of the Lodge, or Castle, having stood in Hornsey Park :

"In the year 1441, Roger Bolingbroke, an astrologer, and Thomas Southwell, a Canon of St. Steven's, were taken up for a conspiracy against Henry VI., when it was alleged that Bolingbroke endeavoured to consume the King's person by necromantic art, and that Thomas Southwell said masses in the Lodge at Hornsey Parke over the instruments which were to be used for that purpose.'

MANORIAL CUSTOMS.

The Manor of Harringay has been before referred to as belonging to the See of London, and was leased in 1645 to a Mr. Smith, for £120 per annum. Lands descend in this as well as the Manor of Cantlers, otherwise Cantlowes, according to the custom of gavel kind, respecting which the following is explanatory, although they vary in almost every Manor:

"Gavel kind, a tenure or custom belonging to

lands in the county of Kent. The word is said by Lambard to be compounded of three Saxon words, gyfe, eal, kyn, or omnibus cognatione proximis data. Verstegan calls it gavel kind, or give all kind, that is, to each child his part; and Taylor, in his history of Gavel kind, derives it from the British, Gavel, that is, a hold, or tenure, and cenned generatio, or familia; and so gavel cenned might signify tenura generationis. It is universally known what struggles the Kentish men made to preserve their ancient liberties, and with how much success those struggles were attended; and as it is principally here we meet with the custom of gavelkind, though it was, and is, to be found in other parts of the kingdom, we may fairly conclude that this was a part of their liberties; according to Mr. Selden's opinion, that gavelkind before the Norman Conquest was the general custom of the realm. The principal and distinguishing properties of this kind of tenure are these: 1st. The tenant is of age sufficient to alienate his estate by feoffment at the age of fifteen; 2d. The estate does not escheat in case of an attainder and execution for felony, their maxim being, the father to the bough, the son to the plough;' 3rd. In most places he had the power of devising lands by will, before the statute for that purpose was made; 4th. The lands descend not to the eldest, youngest, or any one son only, but to all the sons together, which was indeed anciently the

most usual course of descent all over England, though, in particular cases, particular customs prevailed "

MANOR OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

A portion of the Hamlet on the south side of Hornsey Lane is in this manor; the name is derived from its having formed part of the possessions of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, a religious order instituted about the beginning of the twelfth century. The grand house belonging to this order stood on the site of St. John's Square, by Clerkenwell, of which the ancient gateway there forms at this time the most striking remains. Such was the real or pretended humility of these knights, that they at first styled themselves Servants to the poor servants of the hospital at Jerusalem; and, to express their poverty, took for their seal the representation of two men riding on one horse; but by the munificence of some of our kings and nobility, together with the accession of lands and possessions which they received on the suppression of the knights templars (temp. Edward II.), the Order was found, at the dissolution of religious houses, to be endowed with lands to the yearly value of £2385 12s. 8d.; and about the year 1240, they are said to have possessed 19,000 lordships or manors in different parts of Christendom." +

*Cyclopædia Britannica.

+ Camden's Brittania.

66

MOUSEWELL HILL.

There formerly stood at Muswell Hill, called Pinsenall, a chappel, sometime bearing the name of our Ladie of Muswell, where now Alderman Row hath erected a proper house; the place taketh the name of the well of the hill (Mousewell Hill), for there is on the hill a spring of faire water, which is now within the compas of the house. There was for some time an image of the Lady of Muswell, whereunto was a continual resort in the way of pilgrimage, growing, as is (though as I take it) fabulously reported, in regard of a great cure which was performed by this water upon a king of Scots, who, being strangely diseased, was by some divine intelligence advised to take the water of a well in England, called Muswell, which after long scrutation and inquisition, this well was found and performed the cure; absolutely to deny the cure, I dare not, for that the High God hath given virtue unto waters to heale infirmities, as may appear by the cure of Naaman, the leper, by washing himself seven times in Jordan; and by the Poole Bethseda, which healed the next that stepped thereunto after it was moved by the angell.”*

This spring is on the east side of Colney Hatch Lane, in Clerkenwell Parish. (See p. 18.)

* Norden, vol. i., p. 653.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL, CHAPEL, AND BEQUESTS.

This important feature in the history of Highgate claims, as it deserves, a considerable share of notice. It appears to have had its origin, at a very early date, with a class of men not now met with, and to have been subject to numerous fluctuations. Inconsiderable, however, as was its commencement, and the variableness of its progress during a period of upwards of three centuries, it is matter of sincere gratulation to find it soundly established in these times for the promotion of religious and useful education of the youths of Highgate and its vicinity.

In the preceding article, I have noticed the pilgrimages made to the well on the hill at Mousewell, and it is not inconsistent to connect those pilgrims with the hermits who doubtless occupied the small chapel and ground at Highgate at that period; "indeed, could the history of this hermitage be accurately traced, there is little doubt that it would be found to have been one of those cells or humble dwellings which, in the earlier periods of our history, were scattered over the most wild and unfrequented parts of the country, and no part could have been much more wild than this-the summit