On this Day in History ... 13th February

Letters. 13th February 1254. Letter XII. Eleanor of Provence Queen Consort England [aged 31] and Richard of Cornwall 1st Earl Cornwall [aged 45] to King Henry III of England [aged 46].

To their most excellent lord, the lord Henry, by God's grace the illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and earl of Anjou, his most devoted consort Eleanora, by the same grace queen of England, and his devoted and faithful Richard earl of Cornwall, send health with all reverence and honour.

Be it known to your revered lordship that the lords the earl marshall [aged 45] and John de Bailiol [aged 46], being hindered at sea by a contrary wind during twelve days, came to us in England on the Wednesday after the Purification of Blessed Mary last past.

We had been treating with your prelates and the magnates of your kingdom of England before the advent of the said Earl and John, on the quinzaines of St. Hilary last past about your subsidy, and after the arrival of the said Earl and John, with certain of the aforesaid prelates and magnates, the archbishops and bishops answered us that if the King of Castile [aged 32] should come against you in Gascony each of them would assist you from his own property, so that you would be under perpetual obli gations to them; but with regard to granting you an aid from their clergy, they could do nothing without the assent of the said clergy; nor do they believe that their clergy can be induced to give you any help, unless the tenth of clerical goods granted to you for the first year of the crusade, which should begin in the present year, might be relaxed at once by your letters patent, and the collection of the said tenth for the said crusade, for the two following years, might be put in respite up to the term of two years before your passage to the Holy Land; and they will give diligence and treat with the clergy submitted to them, to induce them to assist you according to that form with a tenth of their benefices, in case the King of Castile should attack you in Gascony; but at the departure of the bearer of these presents no subsidy had as yet been granted by the aforesaid clergy. Moreover, as we have elsewhere signified to you, if the King of Castile should come against you in Gascony, all the earls and barons of your kingdom, who are able to cross the sea, will come to you in Gascony, with all their power; but from the other laymen who do not sail over to you we do not think that we can obtain any help for your use, unless you write to your lieutenants in England firmly to maintain your great charters of liberties, and to let this be distinctly perceived by your letters to each Sheriff of your kingdom, and publicly proclaimed through each county of the said kingdom; since, by this means, they would be more strongly animated cheerfully to grant you aid; for many persons complain that the aforesaid charters are not kept by your sheriffs and other bailiffs as they ought to be kept. Be it known, therefore, to your lordship, that we shall hold a conference with the aforesaid clergy and laity at Westminster, in the quinzaines of Passover next, about the aforesaid aid, and we supplicate your lordship that you will write us your good pleasure concerning these affairs with the utmost possible haste. For you will find us prepared and devoted, according to our power, to solicit the aforesaid aid for your use, and to do and procure all other things ....* which can contribute to your convenience and the increase of your honour. Given at Windsor [Map], the 13th of February, in the thirty-eighth year of your reign.

Rymer's Fœdera Volume 2. Concerning the conveyance of Thomas Gournay into England.

The King, to his beloved the mayor, jurats, and good men of his city of Bayonne, greeting.

Whereas we are sending our beloved serjeant-at-arms, Peter Bernard of Pynsole, to conduct Thomas de Gournay, knight, captured overseas for sedition against the person of Lord Edward, late King of England, our father, and conspiracy in his death, and now in your custody under guard, to us in England, as we have more fully charged him on our behalf:

We ask and strictly command you that in those things which concern the safe and secure conveyance of the said Thomas to us, as aforesaid, you shall be advising and assisting the same Peter in such ways and means as you see fit, and in no way shall you omit this.

Given at Waltham, the 13th day of February [1332].

Super ductione Thoma Gournay in Angliam.

Rex, dilectis sibi majori, juratis, & probis hominibus, civitatis suæ Baiona, salutem.

Cùm mittamus, dilectum servientem nostrum ad arma, Petrum Bernardi de Pynsole, ad Thomam Gournaye militem, pro seditione contra personam domini E. nuper Regis Angliæ, patris nostri, ac conspiratione in mortem ejusdem, factis, in partibus transmarinis captum, & jam penes vos sub carcerali custodiâ existentem; ad nos in Angliam ducendum, prout sibi per nos pleniùs est injunctum;

Vos rogamus mandantes, firmiter injungendo, quatenùs eidem Petro in hiis, quæ salvam & securam ductionem dicti Thomæ ad nos, sicut prædictum est, contingunt, consulentes sitis & auxiliantes, modis & viis quibus videritis expedire; et hoc nullatenus omittatis.

Dat' apud Waltham, xiii, die Februarii.

The Times. 13th February 1867. DEATH OF LORD FEVERSHAM. We regret to announce the death, after a short illness, of Lord Feversham [deceased], which occurred on Monday night at his residence in Great Cumberland Street. The late William Duncombe Baron Feversham, of Dancombe Park, County York, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, was son of Charles first Lord by his marriage with Lady Charlotte Legge, only daughter of William, second Earl of Dartmouth. He was born on the 14th of January, 1798, so that he was in his 69th year. The deceased nobleman was educted at Eton [Map], and afterwards proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford. He married l8th of December, 1823, Lady Louisa Stewart [aged 63], third daughter of George, eighth Earl of Galloway, by whom,who survives his Lordship, he leaves issue the Hon. Wiliam E. Duncombe [aged 38], M.P., and Captain the Hon. Cecil Duncombe, of the 1st Life Guards, and three daughters, the Hon Jane, married l1th of April, 1849, to the Hon. Laurence Parsons; the Hon. Gertrude [aged 39], married 27th of November 1&19, to Mr. Francis Horatio Fitzroy [aged 43]; and the Hon. Helen, married 18th of July, 1855, to Mr. William Becket Denison. Previously to his accession to the peerage on the death of his father in July, 1841, he represented Yorkshire in the House of Commons from 1826 to 1830. At the general election in 1831 he was unsuceessful candidate for the coenty, but was returned for the North Riding in the following year, which he continued to represent till 18S1. He voted against the Reforzn Bill of 1832, and was uniformly in favour of agricultural protection. He took great interest in agricultural pursuit, And was a distinguished member of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he was one of the trustees The deceased noblemna is succeded by his eldest son, the Hon. Wiliam Ernest Duncombe, above mentioned, who was born January 28 1829, and married, August 7, 1851, Mabel Violet [aged 33], second daughter of the late Right Hon. Sir James Graham, of Netherby. He was M.P. for East Retford from February, 1852, to 1857 and elected for the North Riding of Yorkshire inI 1859, anA was also returned at the last general election After a sharp contest, being second on the poll. He is Captain of the Yorkshire Yeomianry (Hussars) Cavalry, and Lientenent Colonel of the 2d North Riding like his deceased father, he is a supporter of Lord Derby, but in favour of such a measure of Parliamentary Reforms would give no undue preponderance to any one class, but would ensure to a fair distribution of political privileges.

The Times. 13th February 1915. Death of Sir Edward Antrobus [deceased]

Owner and Guardian of Stonehenge.

Colonel Sir Edward Antrobus, Bt., died at Amesbury Abbey [Map], on Thursday afternoon at the age of 67. He is succeeded by his only remaining brother, Mr. Cosmo Gordon Antrobus [aged 55]. His only son [Edmund Antrobus], who was a Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, was killed in action on October 24 last.

Sir Edmund Antrobus will be remembered as the owner of the famous Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, which was included in the Amesbury Abbey estate of about 8000 acres. After consulting with the Society of Antiquaries, the Society of Ancient Monuments, and the Wilts Archaeological Society, Sir Edmund determined to enclose the monument by wire fencing, and the action led to litigation in the High Court. In April, 1905, the Solicitor-General claimed an order against the owner to remove the fencing, and an injunction to restrain him from erecting such fencing. The claim was based on two grounds - (1) That Stonehenge was a national monument of great interest, and was subject to trust for its freer use by the public: and (2) that there were public roads running up to and through Stonehenge, and that those roads had been blocked by the defendant's fencing. Sir Edmund produced title deeds showing the purchase in fee by this great-great-uncle from the trustees of the Duke of Queensbury, some seventy years before, and an absolute fee simple title in himself. Mr. Justice Farwell, in giving judgement for Sir Edmund, observed that it was only fair to the defendant to say that he was not acting capriciously, but on expert advice, the preservation of the stones.

Sir Edmund, who was the fourth baromet, took a large share in local administration. He was an alderman of the Wilts County Council, a justice of the peace, a member of the Amesbury Rural District Council, and served on many local committees. A few years ago his intention of selling the Amesbury Abbey estate was announced, but the sale was never effected.

Sir Edmund Antrotus was formerly colonel of the 3rd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and served in the Suakin Expedition of 1885. He married, in 1886, Florence [aged 59], daughter of the late Mr. J. A. Sartoris, of Hopsford Hall, Coventry.

Cosmo Gordon Antrobus 5th Baronet: On 22nd October 1859 he was born to Edmund Antrobus 3rd Baronet and Marianne Georgiana Dashwood Lady Antrobus. On 11th February 1915 Edmund Antrobus 4th Baronet died at his home Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire [Map]. His brother Cosmo succeeded 5th Baronet Antrobus of Antrobus in Cheshire, and inherited the Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire [Map] estate including Stonehenge. On 21st September 1915 Cosmo Gordon Antrobus 5th Baronet sold Stonehenge at auction. It was bought by Cecil Herbert Edward Chubb 1st Baronet; see Archaeologia Cambrensis Series 6 Volume 15 1905 Stonehenge. On 29th June 1939 Cosmo Gordon Antrobus 5th Baronet died. His first cousin Philip succeeded 6th Baronet Antrobus of Antrobus in Cheshire.

Daily Telegraph Obituary, 13th February 1917, by Sir Claude Phillips. DEATH OF MR. J.W. WATERHOUSE, R.A. SPECIAL MEMOIR By SIR CLAUDE PHILLIPS. We regret to announce the death of Mr John William Waterhouse [deceased], R.A., who passed away on Saturday, after a long illness, in his 68th year. There are painters who are known as painters' painters. In other words, there are artists whose vocation would seem to lie in catering for the great public, and others who use palette and brush from sheer delight in their handicrafts. A modern of the moderns, Mr Waterhouse may be said to have spent his life in experimenting in and perfecting himself in his technique. An eclectic and a devout believer in "art for art's sake", the late Academician passed through many stages in the drastic business of educating himself for his life task. A symbolist, to start with, it was impossible for a painter of Mr Waterhouse's susceptibilities not to be caught in the great naturalistic wave which swept Europe in the early eighties. Thus we find him for a considerable number of years going direct to nature for the inspiration, while, like many other realists, he went the length of posing his models out of doors in the brilliant sunlight. Plein air was the gospel of the movement, and it is certain that Mr Waterhouse succeeded in giving his canvases those vibrating, atmospheric qualities which were the aim of the new prismatic school. It is true that the critics have sought to establish the fact that Mr Waterhouse was at the time influenced by Alma-Tadema. The fact that he interested himself largely in classic subjects no doubt gave colour to the idea that he was at heart a classicist. But this was far from being the case. With the late Academician the manner and not the matter was the thing. For whether he was depicting Miranda, Diogenes, or St Eulalia, it was a colour problem that the artist envisaged his subject. Who, for instance, does not recall the exquisite harmonies of the picture called "The Magic Circle", where the subtle juxtaposition of mauves and blues recall the happiest inspirations in Persian art? And a dozen other instances might be cited. It was as no cold formalist that Mr Waterhouse envisaged scenes historical. The glamour of the born colourist is to be traced on nearly every canvas to which he put his hand. John William Waterhouse was born in Rome in the year 1849, and was fortunate in possessing a father who not only devoted his life to art, but encouraged his son to follow his own profession. Thus the boy had leisure to spend his days studying the art treasures accumulated with such profusion in London. The National Gallery, the British Museum, and South Kensington became the happy haunts of a student who devised the most original modes of familiarising himself with the work of the great masters. For not only did he model from the antique (it was modelling rather that painting that the youngster essayed in those early days), but established a system of drawing from memory, which he believed to be of great assistance to him in his after-work. Thus, the picture closely scrutinised and examined in the National Gallery by day would be reproduced from memory at night, a valuable aid to training the retentive qualities of the artistic mind. It was while he was thus engaged in sitting at the feet of the old masters that Mr Waterhouse conceived the idea of painting that first series of allegorical subjects which dwelt with the mysteries of human existence. The artist, indeed, was only twenty-five when he exhibited in the Royal Academy the important picture called "Sleep and his half-brother, Death" an allegorical work which attracted a good deal of attention in the spring exhibition of 1874. It was a year later that Mr Waterhouse sent "Miranda" to Burlington House, when he also contributed the canvas called "Whispered Words". It was not, however, till the year 1876 that Mr Waterhouse was honoured to the extent of being placed on the line. This coveted privilege was accorded the picture called "After the Dance";, since when the later artist may be said to have been invariably well hung. For, apart from the brilliance of his technique, his shapely way of laying on paint (a subject we have already touched upon), many of Mr Waterhouse's themes were calculated to attract popular attention. Such, for instance, was the work of 1875, called "A Sick Child Brought into the Temple of Aesculaplus", and such, again, was undoubtedly the historical picture named "The Remorse of Nero after his Mother's Death". A canvas called "The Tibia" was exhibited at Burlington House the same year, while the painter completed the work entitled "La Favorita" the following year. ELECTED TO THE ACADEMY Passing to the year 1882, we find Mr Waterhouse engaged on a "Diogenes", while the ensuing season he exhibited the most important picture he had as yet essayed, "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius". Another canvas, called "The Bubbles", was also seen at Burlington House the same spring, while two years later the artist was elected as Associate of the Royal Academy. In truth Mr Waterhouse would seem to have been working at white heat at this particular time, for we find him tackling in succession such difficult subjects as "Consulting the Oracle" (the oracle Mr Waterhouse presents us with is the far-famed human head of the Teraph), "St Eulalia" and "The Magic Circle", already alluded to. In the canvas called "St Eulalia" the painter shows us the saint lying in the forum, covered with "the miraculous fall of snow", which Prudentius describes as "shrouding the body after her martyrdom." After such a theme the subjects of Ulysses and Circe would naturally present no difficulties to an artist, and accordingly we find Mr Waterhouse busying himself in 1891 with the canvas entitled "Ulysses and the Sirens". In natural sequence Circe followed, the painter breaking away from the traditional representation of the enchantress turning men into swine to the less hackneyed episode of "Circe Poisoning the Sea". A Danae was the output of the same year, the two pictures "A Hamadryad" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" following in 1893, a year Mr Waterhouse also exhibited a canvas called "A Naiad" at the New Gallery. "The Lady of Shalott" occupied the painter's attention next, and this subject, with the picture called "Field Flowers" represented his labours for 1894, yet it was neither with Tennyson's nor Keats' mystic heroine that Mr Waterhouse reached the high-water mark of his popularity. This was attained with his "St Cecilia" in the year 1895, when the Associate was raised to full Academic honours. "Pandora", another notable success, was the artist's next venture, and in 1897 we find the Academician exhibiting "Hylas and the Nymphs" at Burlington House, and picture entitled "Mariana in the South" at the New Gallery. It was to the last-named gallery that Mr Waterhouse sent a "Juliet" in the succeeding spring, his Royal Academy exhibits being two classic themes, namely "Flora and the Zephyrs" and "Ariadne". Of Mr Waterhouse's subsequent work it is hardly necessary to speak. His style, settling in the early nineties into the more or less definite groove that we have all come to know it by, had not materially altered since. Hence we need no more than refer to Mr Waterhouse's diploma picture "A Mermaid", his "Nymphs finding the Head of Orpheus" (exhibited in 1901), or "Echo and Narcissus", given to the world the following year. Other classic subjects include "Psyche opening the Golden Box", "Boreas", and "Psyche opening the Door into Cupid's Garden". Of the few portraits executed by the late Academician we have left ourselves small space to speak. But they were not the happiest inspirations emanating from his hand. Of the half-dozen limned by the painter in late years, Mrs Schreiber, Miss Molly Rickman and Mrs Charles Newton Robinson are perhaps most familiar to the public.

Birmingham Daily Post Obituary. 13th February 1917. MR. J. W. WATERHOUSE, R.A. Mr. John William Waterhouse [deceased] died at his house in St. John's Wood on Saturday, after a long illness, in his sixty-eighth year. SPECIAL MEMOIR The careers of few artists have been marked by so complete a change of aim as that of Mr. Waterhouse. He began, broadly speaking, as a painter of historical pictures and "genre" subjects, in both of which there was often to be found a strong dramatic and even tragic note. He ended in a series of works in which his chief concern was a suave tranquility and decorative effect. To the first, dramatic, period in which the story was regarded as of high importance belong "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius" (1883), "Consulting the Oracle" (1884), and "St. Eulalia" (1885), this last, perhaps, his sole conscious effort at a "tour de force" in draughtmanship by the wonderful fore-shortening of the dead maiden's body. These three pictures did much to win him his Associateship in 1885, after a strenuous exhibiting career of fifteen years. Then followed "The Magic Circle" (1886), that striking presentation of a witch's spells, and "Mariamne", wife of Herod the Great, going to her execution, a most noble and queenly figure (1887). The pictures of this first period, harmonious in colour, are his nearest approach to the academic in painting, but in truth an academic painter Mr. Waterhouse never was. That mere surface finish to attain which the genuine academic will risk truth of tone and freshness of colour was ?? ?? Waterhouse desired . His subjects might occasionally confound him with the academic class, but his paintings never. It was always suggestive, never sought to worry out all the folds and convolutions of a drapery, the vast articulation of a tree, the unnumbered petals of a flower, for mere local completeness's sake at the expense of unity. Yet with this comparative freedom of execution, or rather contempt of tight finish, Waterhouse contrived to give an appearance of reality, truth to nature, and the freshness of first intention which no amount of merely conscientious labour can achieve. He was a realist in so far that he was not content with elaborate colour schemes divorced from nature such as may be found in the work of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. No old-master-like brown tinge pervades his pictures. The colour of his flesh painting has ranked for years with the very best; some, indeed, would rank him as the protagonist in this respect amongst his contemporaries. But realism with Waterhouse was never carried to its ruthless conclusion. He understood that a picture should be a decorative whole, and that minor truths of nature may fairly be subordinated to this great end. So in that very original "Ulysees and the Sirens" (1891), which England has lost to the Melbourne Gallery, there is not a cast shadow to be seen, yet such is the intensity of colour on ship and figures, rocks, and deep toned sea that the impression of Mediterranean sunlight is triumphantly attained. Waterhouse had a receptive mind as regards the work of other painters—he had early leanings towards the sterling art of Alma Tadema—but he never allowed his admiration of other men's work to swamp his own individuality. His style is his own, and he has had many young imitators. The year 1886 was important for him, as then he first saw the early Pre-Raphaelite pictures of Millais. They did not make him a Pre-Raphaelite, but their themes and feeling caused him to divide his interests in future between the classical subjects to which he was always faithful and those derived from Shakespeare and the English nineteenth century poets such as Keats and Tennyson. Though, too, he was wise enough not to attempt the meticulous Pre-Raphaelite delineation of Nature—a quest of the impossible—he found in their wonderful efforts at complete realisation direct from Nature confirmation in his belief that there is no reason why the treatment of the most poetical themes of any period should be divorced from natural truth. Waterhouse was the most virile draughtsman, and he painted with a vigorous full brush. There was no softening of angles at the expense of truth; there was always accent, but never any ostentation or cleverness in brushwork. His skill in two matters of details may be observed in all his pictures, the beautifully expressive, and apparently effortless, drawing of the hands, and the tender modelling of the turn of the brow toward the eye-sockets which gives a charming spirituality to so many of his heads. After 1892 the dramatic leaning may be said to have ceased, and henceforward Mr. Waterhouse aimed at a decorative serenity and a fairness of colour completely in harmony with his often very personal renderings of poetical motives, be they from his long-loved Homeric tales, and classical myths or from the later English poets of his choice. Thanks to the early insight of the late Sir Henry Tate, Waterhouse is well represented in the National Gallery of British Art, while many other public collections contain examples of one of the best painters and colourists our British school can show. F.S.R.