CABMAN AS LOST HEIR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6623, 12 September 1908, Page 6

CABMAN AS LOST HEIR.

DESCENDENT CL FARMER WJU.U HID CHARLES 11. IN THJ3 OAK. In the course of a rccciJt Bitting tho London courts wore asked to presume that death of James Withington, a descendant of the farmer, Richard Pcndorel, who concealed Charles 11, in Boscobel Oak. After his signal defeat by Cromwell at «orcester on September 3, 1651, tho Merry Monarch was, ns every schoolboy knows, hidden in tho foliage of a great oak. The pursiting Ironsides sought him in vain, and Charles, then.a young man of twenty-one, was so grateful as to bestow a perpetual pension of £IOO on the honest yeoman who helped him. Tho Penderel family nos gone through many vicissitudes since the Royal pension was bestowed. In 18&9 two men, James Withington and Robert MacLaren, both descendants of tho original Pcndorol, shared the pension between them. Then they decided to sell their life interest, tho latter starting as a cabman with the sum thus realised. Withington, having slated he w»e going to seek his fortune abroad, disappeared. It has, however, just been satisfactorily settled that instead of crossing the seaa he was drowned in the River Avon before selling his share. In response to an ad* vortisement b- Messrs I’etoh and Co., solicitors, of Bediord-row, a letter come from a Mrs Shoiton, of Wolverhampton, who claimed to be a half-sister of Withington. She described how, when a child, she had heard of James Withington being drowned in tho River Avon. The solicitors thereupon found that an unknown man lied been drowned in tho Avon, near Warwick, at a time which agreed with Mrs Shelton's recollection ot her half-brother’s death. In ago and many other circumstances, the body corresponded with that of James Withington. In the course of his inquiries, the solicitors’ representative also discovered authentic proof of the birth and death of Withington's onlv son. The result of this romantic search will be that presuming tho missing James Wlutington’s death his share of the pension, amounting to £1 a week, will revert to hxs old associate,, Robert MacLaren, who Is still alive and in London. Robert MacLaren is now said to bs living in a state of great poverty, a feeble old man of 75.