Miss Williams Wynn is today have a good gossip about the postumously born son of the Duc de Berri (who was assassinated in 1820; also known as Berry). Usually doubts are about fatherhood, but this one is a doubt about motherhood – was he actually the son of the duke’s English mistress?

Before that, she had a lovely tale about a quality imposter, who made himself a bishop. Although he ended on the galleys in the end …

Today’s splash in the Observer says Women demand tougher laws to curb abortions. What, I thought?

Then you read on. No, no one is “demanding” anything – they are responding to a survey. And this is an online survey – how representative is that really likely to be? And no information is provided on the detail of the questions.

One person from the Family Planning Association is quoted; otherwise you get the Catholic Church, a “pro-life” alliance, and David Cameron.

What the survey actually seemed to have addressed, when you read the detail, is a reduction from a 24 week limit to 20 or 22 weeks, not “tougher laws”.

The survey by MORI shows that 47 per cent of women believe the legal limit for an abortion should be cut from its present 24 weeks, and another 10 per cent want the practice outlawed altogether. Among the population overall, reducing the upper limit was the preferred option backed by the largest proportion of respondents, 42 per cent, made up of a 36-47 per cent split among men and women.
Only one person in three agreed that ‘the current time limit is about right’, with slightly fewer women (31 per cent) than men (35 per cent) saying that. Just 2 per cent of women and 5 per cent of men think the last possible date after which a woman can end a pregnancy should be increased from 24 weeks.

(Not that anyone I know of is campaigning for an increase.) As for the issue of a reduction of a couple of weeks, this seems to be based on emotional campaigns – one fact in the matter: doctors, who are best placed to judge the medical issues, have voted against any reduction.

What IS happening at the Observer? When did it become anti-abortion?

As I’ve written before, we have to keep fighting this issue.

But after all of that negativity, a nice little piece in The Sunday Times (not something I say often) from Aleka Lieven, an 18-year-old A-Level student, on the necessity of feminism (and her compatriots’ false ideas about it). Her evidence is strong:

“We cannot always assume we are going to enjoy exactly the same opportunities as the boys at our brother school, St Paul’s. …
Recently a banker came to give us some career advice. He meant well but it was so sexist. He said City jobs were fine for women, but warned us off the trading floor. It was “too macho and far too aggressive” for the likes of us. Similarly, he added, stay away from corporate finance because of the long hours. Can you imagine him saying that to sixth-form boys? And when is anyone ever going to say to a young man: “This is a good career because you can go part-time after you have children?”

I was trying not to get too into dog blogging, but who could resist a special email request?

It has been cold this week, but Champ has worked out the purpose of a blanket …

While greyhounds have a reputation as fussy easters, Champ will eat anything, particularly if humans eat it too. So it’s worth lots of effort to get the yoghurt at the bottom of the container …

Champ is, however, in the doghouse this week, since he’s decided he doesn’t like being left on his own. The doorframe is suffering (from clawing), as is a bookcase (from teeth), although at least he picked a £10 Homebase MDF one. I’m hoping it is a phase ….

So as not to be speciest, thought I’d also share this pic from Regent’s Park, of what I think are heron’s nests. (At least there seemed to be a heron sitting in one.) Nothing new about multi-storey dwellings …

… still, it is good to see an article in the Observer about “an increasing number of travellers turning their backs on low-cost flights” for environmental reasons.

I’ll still be flying to Australia when necessary – the idea of a slow boat is not feasible by time or cost (although I know that it is possible – last time I looked the cost was roughly equivalent to first-class air, i.e. a lot), but otherwise I am trying not to fly – despite the temptation of all those 1p fares.

This article made me think of my godson and his brother in Australia. I took them to the Manly aquarium in Sydney last time I was out in Oz, by public transport, and we had a lot of fun on ferries, but waiting for the much-delayed bus that was the final step home was a little fraught.

The problem was – well one problem was – that they are simply unused to using public transport. They wanted me to call their mother to fetch them by car, because the idea of waiting for a bus was just outside their experience. (Although it would have taken her half an hour at least to reach us anyway.)

And there must be an enormous number of kids growing up that way; anything to teach them that having to wait for a bus or train etc is not the end of the world must be a good thing. Even simple rules such as “always carry a book” will not occur to people unless they’ve had cause to think about it.

But the Blair government will do its best to see they never learn. Whatever happened to the “green” Tony?

“Ministers are preparing ways of closing or “mothballing” large sections of the railway network, according to an official document which was slipped out without publicity last week.
Dozens of branch lines and secondary routes could shut, in what would be the biggest rethink of the network since the Beeching report in the 1960s, which led to the closure of 4,000 miles of railway and nearly half the nation’s stations. Loss-making services would be transferred on to buses, as a means of reducing the £6bn-a-year subsidy.
An army of consultants will decide whether lines should stay open or close. A law passed last year has reduced the right of passengers to object to closures.
The 83-page consultation paper uses a new kind of cost-benefit analysis, which, experts say, will highlight the economically fragile state of the network. Such analysis often penalises trains because it fails to take into account that they are environmentally friendly. As one senior rail industry figure put it last night: “The trouble with consultants is they will do exactly what ministers want them to do.”

(You are watching historical research in action here – apologies to readers who prefer more contemporary material …)

I posted earlier this week on the nonagenarian Dame Helen Branch who died in 1594. I had found a pamphlet celebration of her life, and thought, for the time, that was something special. But – thanks in large part to a commenter, “Clanger” – it now emerges that there were FOUR memorial tributes printed after her death.

The one that I found in the British Library is Epicedium, A Funerall Song, vpon the vertuous life, and godly death, of the right worshipfull the Lady Helen Branch. [Signed: W. Har.], Thomas Creede: London, 1594.

Also existing are three others:

1. Attributed to John Phillips: A commemoration of the life and death of the right worshipfull and vertuous ladie; Dame Helen Branch (late wife to the right worshipfull Sir Iohn Branch Knight, sometime Lord Maior of the famous Citie of London) by whose godly and virtuous life, virgines are insinuated to virtue, wiues to faithfulnes, and widdowes to Christian contemplation, and charitable deuotion, &c. Which godly ladie left this mortall life (to liue with Christ Ihesus) the 10. of April last: and lieth interred in the parish church of Saint Marie Abchurch, nigh vnto Canwicke streete, the 29. day of the same month. 1594. I.P. (The text is here.)

2. By Joshua Sylvester: Monodia. An elegie, in commemoration of the vertuous life, and godlie death of the right worshipfull & most religious lady, Dame Hellen Branch widdowe, (late wife to the right worshipfull Sir Iohn Branch knight, sometimes L. Mayor of this honorable Citty, and daughter of M. W. Nicholson sometimes of London draper) who deceased the 10. of Aprill last, and lieth interred in Saint Mary Abchurch in London, the 29. of the same, 1594. [London]: Imprinted by Peter short, [1594].
(This site says she was the “the aunt of his friend Robert Nicholson”.)

3. An epitaph of the vertuous life and death of the right worshipfull ladie, Dame Helen Branch of London: widow, late the wife of Sir Iohn Branch Knight, sometime the right honourable Lord Maior of London, and daughter to M. William Nicolson sometime of London draper: vvhich said ladie, deceased on VVednesday the 10. of April last past, and lieth interred in the parish church of S. Mary Abchurch in London, the 29. of the same moneth, 1594. London: Printed by Thomas Creede, 1594. Signed at the end: ‘S. P.’

In the British Library copy of Epicedium (see post above) is written (in a hand and ink that looks to me 16th-century or thereabouts):

HELENAE NICOLSON dominae BRANCH
epitaphium lapide Lydio misculptim, &
literis aueeus miscriptum in tumulum
delubro sancta Maria Abchurche
LONDON decoris exructim
Anno a partue virgins, 1594

In fahicem memoriam pia pulchra & pudicae femina domina HELEN BRANCH, filia venerablis, GVIELMI NICOLSON ohim ciuis & Pamnarin LONDON quondam per quadraginta ammos (& eo ampliup) vxoris viri dignisim JOHANNIS DIINORS ciuis et etiam Pannarin LONDON cui peperit filium vnum Rogerum, & filias tres, Joannam Ripman, & Plaragaretam omnes fine prote deunctos Nuper (ad annum asque vugezimum) uxoris aurati quondam praecharizimae ciutatis LONDON homoratizimi Plaioris:
ROBERTUS NICOLSON generosus ex fratre nepos vreiufoz heres & dicta Dominae sotus executor, suis fumptubus spontaneis hoc Monumentum pofuit.

Nuper fui eti estis:
Nunc sum eti eritis.

Quam ter falicem pietas opulentia, forma,
Flecere’ im terris modo suffragante popells:
Suffragante’ Deo fideo, constantia viuoe’
Eternum in calis, te nunc iubet eze beatam.
Nonagenaria obut 10 mo. Aprilis
Annon Salutis 1594 to.
————————————

Cuius honoratizimae’ Dominae’ exequinae’ moerentes splendenie
Die unnae ( ) 29 Aprilis 1594 to magna comitant caterua tam ornatizima Domini CVIBERTI BVCKLE tunc turrigeri LONDONI==INI Plaioris, quam venerabilizimocum
Doctorum, Generoforum, confanguineorum, Affirmum, proximorn, caduceatorum; perhomorificaruma Dominarum ‘generosarm & pauperum, honorifice celebrata fuerunt . .

Tetratichon suprascriptum Anglice.
Ladie whom Pietie, Plentie, Beautie rare’
thrice hapie made on earth by peoples voices:
By constant lively faith, Heaven doth prepare’
eternal bliss for thee’, wher LOVE reiosies,
Per Robin Nicolson; dicta Dominae nepotem’
Idem Anglice.

whom Pietie, Plentie & Beautie made,
thrice happie here, in Earth among the best:
Her lively faith, whose true fauite never fade’
makes home with God in heaven for ever blest.

[The bottom line is unfortunately cut off, but I think it almost certainly reads
Joshua Silueter: 1594]

So at least the English part of that is probably from one of the other pamphlets.

I suspect that the part above the line might be the epitaph from her tomb (the original having been lost in the Great Fire.)

I get from the bolded part that she was a beautiful and modest/chaste matron, dutiful daughter to John Nicolson, and that Robert Nicolson was her executor. Can anyone help with anything more?

Thanks in advance, and please forgive any transcription errors – not easy with handwriting in a language you don’t know.

(I find that Phillips at least wrote quite a few similar elegies, although mostly for aristocrats rather than gentry.)