“SCRATCHED” WINDOWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1936, Page 12

“SCRATCHED” WINDOWS

AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE. Sir Cecil Harcourt-Smith, Surveyor of the Royal Works of Art, writes in the London “Daily Telegraph.”) A curious discovery has been made during the exhibition at St. James’s Palace of the wedding presents to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. On a glass pane in one of the windows of the Throne Room is an inscription, written with a diamond, stating that “Tbos. Smith broke his Rist and fell In the Garden throw this window, May the 30th, 1767.” The spelling of the inscription is obviously" not. according to Cocker; but even in the secondah ofl ...ti.. z but even in the second half of the 18th century the rules of spelling, especially in other than printed matter, were not too strictly observed. On the other hand, the style of lettering is decorative, and would seem to be that of an educated person.

Who, then, was Thomas Smith, and what were the details of the accident here recorded? What was he doingin the Throne Room, to which presumably only privileged persons or officials have usually had access? The records of the Lord Chamberlain’s office throw no light on the question, and it is left to the imagination to propose a solution of the problem. Various suggestions have been made as to the possible identity of Thomas Smith. It is a little unfortunate that the hero, or vjctim, of the occurrence did not possess a more distinctive patronymic.

Was our Thomas a hero? Was he some gallant who broke his “Rist” climbing to the window in an escapade of love, or in some hot-blooded difference with a rival in the affections of some lady of fashion? If so, why should he have fallen through the window, unless he weer struggling near it or climbing to an assignation?' Both alternatives most unseemly in connection with the Throne Room. Alas, it must be confessed that there is a much more commonplace alternative which is more than probable: that Thomas was either a glazier or a window-cleaner.

We may probably dismiss the window cleaner, as it is scarcely possible that so humble an official would have dared to leave his permanent mark on a Palace window. A glazier, however, was in those days a craftsman of some repute. Glaziers from early times were not only men who set glass in windows, but artists who painted on glass. THE LOYALIST’S PRAYER. In 1638 Charles I. granted a charter incorporating the freemen of the “Mistery or Arte of Glasiers and Painters of Glasse of the City of London.” So that glaziers had good reason to bless King Charles I. • We know that in many public buildings of all ages masons have left their marks or their names as the sign-manual of work they have done. There is no reason why a glazier should not have been prompted by the same desire of immortalising himself. As a matter of fact there is in the London Museum a pane of glass from the east window of Old Temple j Bar which bears the inscription. “J. l W. Sewell, glazier, July 22nd, 1638” —| the very year in which the glaziers’ i charter was granted. I One discovery is apt to lead to another. Since the Thomas Smith inscription was found it transpires that one of the windows in the Guard Room at St. James’s Palace is engraved with similar inscriptions. Ono of these appears to have a special historical significance. It runs: William Rutherford, God Bless. Ki. The writing, which is well engraved, compares with that of the Sewell inscription, and would appear to be of much the same, or slightly later, date. When we remember that KingCharles 1., according to tradition, spent in this very room at St. James’s Palace the last night before his execution, it is not difficult to picture the circumstances. William

Rutherford, who may have been in attendance on the King, having inscribed his name, felt the desire, which must have been in many minds at the time, to add an expression of his loyalty to his Master. We may suppose that he intended to write “King Charles,” but before his task was completed he was interrupted, probably by one of the Roundhead Guards, and not allowed to finish his self-imposed task. One wonders what, if any, form of penalty he underwent for this audacious assertion of his opinions. | If this supposition is well founded, it is unfortunate that he was unable to add the date, which might have strengthened the probability of the explanation here given. >

RALEIGH AND HIS QUEEN. The habit*of engraving inscriptions on window-panes was, of course, not uncommon in the 17th and 18th centuries.. The classical instance in history is the account in Fuller’s Worthies” of the supposed .exchange of couplets between Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. He is said to have written on a wiiidow in Greehwich Palace ■ “Fain would I climb Yet. fear I to fall,” and the Queen to have replied ‘ “If thy heart fails thee Climb not at all.” This pretty story, like that of Raleigh’s new purple cloak spread over the puddle for Gloriana to walk upon, rests on somewhat, uncertain evidence; but there is this in favour of their probability, 'that they are both in keeping with what we know of Raleigh’s character. It is at least significant that the episodes seem to have occurred just at the time when, from being comparatively unknown, he sprang suddenly into favour. Raleigh was no mean versifier; of his chief poem, “Cynthia,” no less a critic than Edmund Spenser wrote to him in 1590, describing it as “your own excellent conceit.” It is not unlikely, therefore, that he may have couched his ambitious sentiment in versed even of so artless a form. The two inscriptions- in St. James’s Palace would thus seem to stand in a separate category from the innumerable names which in all times and places have been carved or written, sometimes recording the vows of lovers, but generally in the desire to perpetuate a memory or a thought. Orlando, in “As You Like It,” glorifies the rather vulgar habit of cutting names on tree-trunks when he says, “Tongues I’ll hang on every tree.”

The walls of the dungeons in old Newgate Prison and the Tower show the tragic side. On the other hand, the back of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey’ is scored with the more idle and purposeless of such inscriptions. One of the latest and more curious of these is the record of one Peter Abbott, who wagered that he would write his name at night on Purcell’s monument in the north aisle.

The person in question, who is otherwise completely unknown, hid among the tombs and effected his horrid purpose; not only that, but he wrote on the Coronation Chair: "Peter Abbott slept in this Chair July 5, 18.” As Dean Stanley remarked, he thereby proved “not only the reckless irreverence of the intruder, but the universal attraction of the relic.” One may hope that Thomas Smith’s inscription is due to a less frivolous cause.