Minor Queries Answered.
Sir W. Stanley.
—I find in one of the usual history books in use that Sir William Stanley, who was beheaded for high treason, for saying "If Perkin Wabbeck is son of Edward IV., I will supply him with five hundred men," was executed in the third year of Henry VII. Now, in a memorandum of the time in a Horæ B. Virg. in my possession, it states:
"Memorandum: Quod die lune xvio die Februarii anno Regis Henrici Septimi Decimo Willius Stanley, Miles, Camerarius regis prædicti receptus fuit apud Turrim London, et ductus usque scaffold et ibidem fuit decapitatus. Johannes Warner et Nicholas Allwyn tunc vic. London."
Could you help me to the true account?
JOHN C. JACKSON.
Cross House, Ilminster, Somerset.
[The memorandum in the Horæ agrees with the date given in Fabyan's Chronicle, p. 685., edit. 1811, viz. February 16, 1495. Fuller, in his Worthies, also states that Allwyn and Warner were sheriffs of London in the tenth year of Henry VII.]
Mires—Somerlayes.
—In the appointment of a pinder for the town of Hunstanton, Norfolk, dated 1644, these two words occur: "No person shall feed any mires with any beast," &c. Mire is clearly the same as meer, i.e. the strip of unploughed ground bounding adjacent fields. "None shall tye any of their cattle upon anothers somerlayes without leave of the owner," &c. I suppose somerlaye to be the same as somerland, explained by Halliwell to mean, land lying fallow during summer. I find neither word in Forby's Glossary.
C. W. G.
[Grass laid down for summer pasture, is called in Kent, lay fields; doubtless somerlayes are such. Probably a corruption of lea, the lesura of Latin charters.]
Wyned.
—In an old precedent (seventeenth century) of a lease of a house, I find the words "divers parcels of wyned waynescott windowes and other implements of household." What is wyned?
C. W. G.
[A friend, who is extremely well versed in early records, and to whom we referred this Query, observes, "I have never met with the word, nor can I find a trace of it anywhere. I suspect that the querist has misread his MS., and that, in the original, it is payned, for paned. In the slovenly writing of that period many a form of pa might be mistaken for w. The upstroke of the p is often driven high. I have seen many a pa like this instance.">[
Cromwell Family.
—Two leaves, paged from 243 to 246, cuttings from an old magazine, seemingly having dates down to 1772, entitled "Account of the Male Descendants of Oliver Cromwell. By the Rev. Mr. Hewling Luson, of Lowestoft, in Suffolk. In a Letter to Dr. Brooke." [Concluded from our last, page 197.] The next article commencing, "On the Knowledge of Mankind. From Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," having lately come into my hands, I shall feel greatly obliged by being informed through "N. & Q.," or otherwise, where may I meet with the previous part of such account of the Cromwell family, or the title and date of such magazine?
W. P. A.
[Mr. Luson's letter to Dr. Brooke, referred to by our correspondent, will be found in Hughes's Letters, edited by Duncombe, vol. ii. Appendix, p. xxxii. edit. 1773.]
Beholden.
—Is the word "beholden" a corruption of the Dutch "gehouden," or is it a past participle from the verb "to behold?" If the latter, how comes it from signifying "seen," to denote "indebted"?
A. F. S.
[If our correspondent had referred to Richardson's Dictionary, his difficulty would have been removed on reading this derivation and definition:
"Angl.-Saxon, Be-healdan, Be-haldan, Healdan. Dutch, Behouden, tenere, servare, observare. To keep or hold (sc. the eye fixed upon any object), to look at it, to observe, to consider.">[
Men of Kent and Kentish Men.
—The natives of Kent are often spoken of in these different terms. Will you be so good as to inform me what is the difference between these most undoubtedly distinctive people?
B. M.
[A very old man, in our younger days, whose informant lived temp. Jac. II., used to explain it thus:—When the Conqueror marched from Dover towards London, he was stopped at Swansconope, by Stigand, at the head of the "Men of Kent," with oak boughs "all on their brawny shoulders," as emblems of peace, on condition of his preserving inviolate the Saxon laws and customs of Kent; else they were ready to fight unto the death for them. The Conqueror chose the first alternative: hence we retain our Law of Gavelkind, &c., and hence the inhabitants of the part of Kent lying between Rochester and London, being "invicti," have ever since been designated as "Men of Kent," while those to the eastward, through whose district the Conqueror marched unopposed, are only "Kentish Men." This is hardly a satisfactory account; but we give it as we had it.
We suspect the real origin of the terms to have been, a mode of distinguishing any man whose family had been long settled in the county (from time immemorial, it may be), from new settlers; the former being genuine "Men of Kent," the latter only "Kentish." The monosyllabic name of the county probably led to this play upon the word, which could not have been achieved in the "shires.">[
Bee-Park.
—This term is used in Cornish title-deeds. What species of inclosure does it express? Do any such exist now?
C. W. G.
[We have never met with the word, and can only guess at random that it is quasi "the bee-croft," the enclosure where the bees were kept; always remembering that formerly, when honey was an article of large consumption, immense stores of these insects must have been kept. In royal inventories we have "honey casks" enumerated to an immense amount.]
A great Man who could not spell.
—Of what great historical character is it recorded, that though by no means deficient in education, he never could succeed in spelling correctly? I have an impression of having read this in some biography a few years since, and I think it was a great military commander, who always committed this error in his despatches, though a man of acknowledged high talents and well-informed mind, and conscious of this defect, which he had endeavoured in vain to overcome.
SAMPSON ANRAMENII.
[Does our correspondent allude to the Duke of Marlborough, who was avowedly "loose in his cacography" as Lord Duberly has it?]
Glass-making in England.
—The appearance in your pages of several very interesting Notes on the First Paper-mill in England leads me to beg space for a few Queries on another subject of Art-History.
1. When, where, and under what circumstances, was the first manufactory for glass established in England?
2. What writer first notices the introduction or use of glass, in our island?
3. Are there any works of authority published devoted to this material? If so, may I request some of your learned contributors to direct me to them, or, in fact, to any good notice of its early history?
JOSIAH CATO.
5. Holland Place, North Brixton.
[Fosbroke, in his Encyclopædia of Antiquities, vol. i. p. 397., has given some curious notices of the early manufacture of this useful article. The art of glass-making was known to the early Egyptians, as is fully discussed in a Memoir by M. Boudet, in the Description de l'Egypt, vol. ix. Antiq. Mémoires. See also the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, vol. viii. p. 469, which contains many historical notices, from a neat and concise sketch published by Mr. Pellatt, of the firm of Pellatt and Green, whose works are scientifically conducted on a scale of considerable magnitude.]
Eustace.
—Was Eustachius Monachus ever in Guernsey?
MORTIMER COLLINS.
[It is very probable. Some of the crew of this renowned pirate were captured at Sark. See Michel's Introduction to the Roman d'Eustache le Moine, 8vo. 1834, where copies of most of our records, and of the passages in our early historians, in which Eustace is mentioned, have been collected with great care.]
Mas.
—I inquired what was the meaning of Mass Robert Fleming, and I partly answer my own question, by saying that Cameronian preachers were so styled, or rather Mas with one "s" before their Christian names,—as Mas David Williamson, Mas John King: see John Creichton's Memoirs. But I ask again, how the title arises, and whether it is short for master?
A. N.
[Nares, in his Glossary, has given several examples from our earlier dramatists in which Mas is used as a colloquial abbreviation of Master, the plural being Masse.]
John Le Neve.
—Who was John Le Neve, the compiler and editor of the Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, fol. 1716? He has been, though erroneously, supposed to be a brother of Peter Le Neve, Norroy. When did he die?
G.
[John Le Neve was born in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, Dec. 27, 1679. In his twelfth year he was sent to Eton School, and at the age of sixteen became a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained three years. He married Frances, the second daughter of Thomas Boughton, of King's Cliffe, in Northamptonshire, by whom he had four sons and four daughters. He died about 1722. Mr. Lysons, in Environs of London, says he had a house at Stratford, Bow. (See Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 128.) In Cole's MSS., vol. i. p. 143., is the following curious note respecting his Fasti:—"I was told by my worthy friend and benefactor, Browne Willis, Esq., that though Mr. John Le Neve has the name and credit of the Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, yet the real compiler of that most useful book was Bishop Kennett." The Bodleian contains a copy of this work, with MS. additions by Bishop Tanner.]
Meaning of Crow.
—At page 437. of Lloyd's Statesmen and Favourites of England is a letter from Queen Elizabeth addressed to the mother of Sir John Norris, written upon the occasion of the death of the said Sir John, which she commences thus: "My own Crow." This appears to me a very curious mode of address, particularly from a queen to a subject, and seems to mark a more than ordinary intimacy between the correspondents, for it has been suggested to me that it is still used as a term of endearment, in the same way as "duck," &c. are used: I have, however, never before met with it myself, and have sent you a Note of it now, not only because I consider it curious that the queen should thus write, but because I hope that some of your correspondents may be able to suggest how this word came to be thus used.
JOHN BRANFILL HARRISON.
Maidstone.
[Queen Elizabeth had pet-names, or nick-names, for all the people of her court. Burghley was her "Spirit," Mountjoy her "Kitchen-maid;" and so of many others.]