[500]. I need not stay to point out the early familiar use of ‘yard’ as a stick or staff of any length. In Wicklyffe’s New Testament we find the following:—‘And he seide to hem nothing take ye in the weye—neither yerde, ne scrippe, neither breed, ne money.’ (Luke ix. 3.) Our Authorized Version still preserves the meteyard from obsoletism: ‘Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.’ (Lev. xix. 35.)
[501]. The horn was carried by the watchman as well as the huntsman and the cryer. ‘Henry Watchorn’ was mayor of Leicester in 1780, and the name occurs in the Nottingham Directory for 1864. Other compounds besides ‘Waghorn’ are ‘Crookhorn,’ ‘Cramphorn’ (i.e., crooked horn), ‘Langhorn’ and ‘Whitehorn.’
[502]. It was a Captain Waghorn who was tried by court-martial for the wreck of the Royal George, which went down off Portsmouth in 1782. He was acquitted, however.
[503]. ‘Anne, daughter of Hugh and Elizabeth Shakeshaft, baptized Dec. 6, 1744.’ (St. Ann’s, Register, Manchester.)
[504]. ‘Robert Go-before’ in the Rolls of Parl. is an evident sobriquet affixed upon some official of this class.
[505]. ‘John Swyrdebrake,’ alias ‘John Taillour.’
(Materials for Hist. Henry VII., p. 441.)
[506]. In a list of bankrupts, dated the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, and quoted in Notes and Queries, Jan. 1860, occurs an ‘Anthony Halstaffe,’ doubtless originally ‘Halestaffe,’ from ‘hale,’ to drag, and thus a likely sobriquet for a catchpoll or bailiff.
[507]. In the biographical notice appended to Archbishop Sandys’ Sermons, published by the Parker Society, we find that one of his friends was called ‘Hurlestone.’ This will be of similar origin with ‘Hurlebat.’ (pp. 13, 14.)
[508]. ‘Thomas Crakyshield’ was Rector of North Creak in Norfolk in the year 1412. (Hist. Norfolk, vii. 77.)