‘What is your name?’ then said Robin Hood,
‘Come, tell me, without any fail;’
‘By the faith of my body,’ then said the young man,
‘My name it is Allan a Dale.’
(Robin Hood, vol. ii, 261.)
[106]. One of the best puns extant is put to the credit of the Duke of Buckingham by Walter Scott, in his Peveril of the Peak. A Mrs. Cresswell, who had borne anything but a creditable character, bequeathed 10l. for a funeral sermon, in which nothing ill-natured was to be said of her. The duke wrote the following brief but pointed discourse: ‘All I shall say of her is this: she was born well, she married well, she lived well, and she died well; for she was born at “Shad-well,” married to “Cress-well,” lived at “Clerken-well,” and died in “Bride-well.”’
[107]. A will, dated 1553, among other bequests mentions: ‘Also to my nawnt Bygott an old angell of golde.’ The old angel, I need not say, refers to the coin, not the aunt. (Richmondshire Wills, p. 76.)
[108]. This name thus formed existed till the sixteenth century, at least, for ‘Christopher Nend’ is set down in the Corpus Christi Guild, York, 1530.
[109]. William de Okholt is found in the ‘Inquis. post mortem.’ This would be the original form.