Lodge, in his _Peerage_, very kindly kills all the sons, Patrick included; but it appears that he did not depart this life until he had left issue, from whom the late Earl had his origin. If Lodge is thus wrong in one case, he may be in others, and I have reason to believe that Thomas left a son settled in a place in Ireland called Portlick.
_St. Cuthbert._--The body of St. Cuthbert, as is well known, had many wanderings before it found a magnificent resting-place at Durham. Now, in an anonymous _History of the Cathedral Church of Durham_, without date, we have a very particular account of the defacement of the shrine of St. { 326} Cuthbert, in the reign of Henry VIII. The body was found "lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth, with all the vestments about him as he accustomed to say mass withal." The vestments are described as being "fresh, safe, and not consumed." The visitors "commanded him to be carried into the Revestry, till the king's pleasure concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof the prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his shrine was exalted." Now, there is a tradition of the Benedictines (of whose monastery the cathedral was part) that on the accession of Elizabeth the monks, who were apprehensive of further violence, removed the body in the night-time from the place where it had been buried to some other part of the building. This spot is known only to three persons, brothers of the order; and it is said that there are three persons who have this knowledge now, as communicated from previous generations.
But a discovery was made in 1827 of the remains of a body in the centre of the spot where the shrine stood, with various relics of a very early period and it was asserted to be the body of St. Cuthbert. This, however, has not been universally assented to, and Mr. Akerman, in his _Archæological Index_, has--
"The object commonly called St. Cuthbert's Cross" (though the designation has been questioned), "found with human remains and other relics of the Anglo-Saxon period, in the Cathedral of Durham in 1827."--p. 144.
There does seem considerable discrepancy in the statements of the remains found in 1827 and the body deposited 1541.