Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough
A canon regular of the Augustinian Guisborough Priory, Yorkshire, formerly known as The Chronicle of Walter of Hemingburgh, describes the period from 1066 to 1346. Before 1274 the Chronicle is based on other works. Thereafter, the Chronicle is original, and a remarkable source for the events of the time. This book provides a translation of the Chronicle from that date. The Latin source for our translation is the 1849 work edited by Hans Claude Hamilton. Hamilton, in his preface, says: 'In the present work we behold perhaps one of the finest samples of our early chronicles, both as regards the value of the events recorded, and the correctness with which they are detailed; Nor will the pleasing style of composition be lightly passed over by those capable of seeing reflected from it the tokens of a vigorous and cultivated mind, and a favourable specimen of the learning and taste of the age in which it was framed.'
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In May 1821 Mary Ellen Peacock was born to [her father] Thomas Love Peacock.
In January 1844 Edward Nicolls and Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 22] were married.
On 11th March 1844 Edward Nicolls, a naval officer in command of the HMS Dwarf, drowned in the Shannon estuary while rescuing people in distress. His wife of two months Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 22], who was with Edward aboard the vessel, had encouraged him to undertake the rescue attempt in which he lost his life. She was pregnant at the time of her husband's death.
On 9th August 1849 George Meredith [aged 21] and Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 28] were married at St George's Church, Hanover Square. Their honeymoon was to the Rhine Valley where George had been to school.
In 1857 Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 35], wife of [her husband] George Meredith [aged 28], eloped with Henry Wallis [aged 26].
1857. Henry Wallis [aged 26]. Portrait of Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 35].
On 29th September 1857 Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 36] wrote to Henry Wallis [aged 27]:
"If we have to stay in England let us be at Clifton. I have no answer from [her husband] George [aged 29]. I imagine he wants to see Darvall [Henry Darvall] before writing. If he gives no reply in a week I shall take his silence for freedom and go abroad without another word, if you will like it, and where you will… I am always dreading to lose you because I feel I have no right to you, and I love you so really, so far beyond anything I have known of love, that there are ways in which I believe I could bear to lose you. God knows how hard it would be; but I believe I could bear it. Not by Death or weariness or anger. By Death I could not lose you
The love where Death has set his seal
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal
Nor falsehood disavow, (Lord Byron, Elegy on Thyrza)
But I do not fear your Death, because I feel how much you owe to Life, how much Life has for you, and surely I shall in no shape lead you Delilah-like to Death, since it is my one aim to add to your strength, my one prayer 'God grant that I may do this man no harm'. And for weariness or anger, if we begin to thread either of those paths we will part before they possess us."
1858. Henry Wallis [aged 27]. Portrait of Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 36], wife of [her husband] George Meredith [aged 29], with whom Henry Wallis had eloped the previous year.
In October 1861 Mary Ellen Peacock [aged 40] died.
On 18th May 1909 [her former husband] George Meredith [aged 81] died.